Industry news

Security applications 'to reach the clouds'

Security applications delivered as a cloud-based service will dramatically soar in the next five years, one market analyst has said.

Gartner claims the technology will more than triple in many segments by 2013.

Kelly Kavanagh, principal analyst at the firm, said: "The ability to provide massively scalable processing, storage and bandwidth inherent in cloud computing will require security controls and functions to be delivered to customers in new ways and by new service providers."

She adds it will also allow security cost-effective technologies and techniques to become exclusive with cloud-style computing.

According to the analyst, cloud computing will enable security controls and functions to be delivered in new ways and firms will be able to adopt technologies, which might otherwise not be cost-effective.

It was reported last week by ZDNet that Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, believes developers should create web applications that migrate seamlessly from desktops to the "cloud".