Endpoint Security in 2012

A. Braunberg

Summary Bullets:

• Post-PC era is not PC-less
• Where policy for mobile devices is managed is a critical question.

To say we are moving into a post-PC era does not imply that the PC is going away, only that much of the energy in the computing markets is moving to newer, more nimble devices. PC shipments in 2011 were down about 4% year over year. This is attributed mostly to the rise of interest in tablets and smartphones, which can both assume some of the tasks traditionally performed by PCs. This is an important point to emphasize when thinking about the endpoint security markets. Firstly, there will be a strong market for PC client security products for years to come. And because of this, traditional endpoint security vendors believe they have potent leverage when moving into the markets for securing tablets and smartphones: namely, that enterprise customers want to consolidate and integrate endpoint security policy across all end user devices. (Everybody better start thinking more holistically about identity management by the way. But that is a discussion for another post).