10/13/2008 -- As Cisco Systems Inc. continues to aggressively expand its portfolio of IronPort security appliances, the content security market itself is expanding at a healthy clip. According to market watcher Infonetics Research, for example, the market for content security gateways -- which includes both software and appliances -- reached $455.5 million in Q2, an uptick of 6 percent.

Cisco, to an extent, has helped lead the charge. In the first quarter of this year, it edged past Symantec Corp. to grab the lead in the worldwide market for content security gateway appliances; in Q2, it opened up a slightly bigger lead over Symantec, which once again clocked in at No. 2. Security appliance specialist Blue Coat, on the other hand, grabbed the No. 3 spot.

Overall, Infonetics said, the content security market is up more than a fifth (21 percent) year-over-year from the second quarter of last year. It expects that trend to continue throughout the 2008 calendar year, as market leaders Websense, Symantec and Trend Micro gear up for competition, even as newcomer Cisco rapidly increases its market share.

"This is Cisco's third full quarter of reporting, and they're now in first place in the content security appliance segment, and on the steepest ramp for market share growth in the overall content security market. Due to the success of many vendors in this space, we expect the content security gateway market to grow very well in 2008 as companies get a handle on the spam and malicious code that proliferated in 2007," said Jeff Wilson, principal analyst for network security at Infonetics Research, in a release.

Elsewhere, Infonetics said, Websense -- which last year acquired the former SurfControl -- leads both the content security gateway software and content security gateway markets.

The economic outlook might be grim, but Infonetics isn't projecting any slackening of demand, at least on the content security tip. Between 2007 and 2011, it predicted, companies will plunk down more than $10 billion for content security software and appliances.

One reason for this, researchers say, is that content security is largely insulated from a "sluggish" North American economy. And sales of content security offerings in North America account for "roughly half" of the worldwide tally, Infonetics concluded. --Stephen Swoyer