Convergence - physical security and IT spending bursts over the next five years

CHICAGO--Convergence--bridging the gap between physical security and IT--is a hot topic in the physical security space. It is so hot that 4A International, a research and consulting firm with a focus on convergence, predicts revenues in the convergence market will exceed $22 billion within five years, as revealed in a report on Security Convergence Spending: Opening the door for IT, this month. The report predicts that by 2007 this budding enterprise, the physical security and IT convergence market, will command global revenues of over $6 billion. And by 2010 revenues will exceed $22 billion, said Steve Hunt, chief executive officer and president of the consulting firm and an advisory board member for TechSec Solutions, a conference that centers around IP-ready security technology and brings together systems integrators, end users, consultants and security product manufacturers to talk about this ongoing change in the industry. As the physical security and IT convergence morphs into one market, Hunt predicts there will be a break out of integrators. "One third will go out of business, one third will struggle to report, the last one third will rise to the occasion and properly partner with IT integrators, " he said The report sampled security decision makers from 3,000 organizations in the public and private sector in North America and Europe. The report noted that end users' demand and budget trends will focus on event management, identity management, and services in the next five years. The drivers for convergence spending, Hunt said, is as physical security technology becomes archaic and does not meet the end users' needs, national security costs will spiral out of control if the industry does not partner with the IT sector. The merge will come into the fold as end-users make the demand, Hunt said. "In five years, the major systems on which physical security will rely on, will be software platforms produced by IT companies," Hunt said. This means that together IT and physical security create value, Hunt said. "Separately, they create costs." By 2010, the event management market is estimated to reach $11.54 million, identity management market $5.65 million and services market $5.6 million, according to the report.