An earlier Trends & Predictions research note, "Security 2006: Refocus Spending to Match New Threats," discussed how changing security threats required a change in spending. Info-Tech Research Group's Indaba division recently conducted a survey to assess the security picture and gain deeper insight as to where IT professionals are spending their budgets, on which technologies, and why.

Security Product Selection Criteria

Survey participants were asked to rate the importance of certain buying criteria when selecting security solutions. Out of 15 possible selection criteria, only the top six are shown below. Interestingly, criteria such as warranties, SLAs, and delivery speed (not included in graph) were rarely cited as motivators for buying solutions, and for the most part, not used at all as reasons to reject otherwise qualified suppliers.