Security appliances have become a popular and simple means for delivering software and security solutions into businesses of all sizes in every market. IDC's Canadian Quarterly Security Appliance Tracker® provides the ability to quickly and effectively respond to today's dynamic security appliance market, by keeping pace with evolving functionality and rapid deployment of new models competing in the marketplace. This product provides insight into customer trends, by delivering product line and vendor market share information. IDC's Canadian Quarterly Security Appliance Tracker presents market data in an easy-to-use product interface for market measurement and business planning activities.

This tracker provides total market size and vendor share for the following technology areas and segmentations. Measurement for this tracker is in unit shipments, end-user revenue, and factory revenue.

Technologies and sub-technologies:

• Security function (content management, firewall/VPN, IDS, IPS, unified threat management, VPN)
• Network type (wired, wireless)

Segmentations:

• Vendor product lines
• List price bands (from Band 1 [$0–900] to Band 9 [$250–499,000]

• Canada

This tracker is delivered on a quarterly basis within an MS-Excel pivot table. The delivery schedule for this tracker is as follows:

• Historical data: Week 10 after period closes

IDC's tracker data is developed using a rigorous methodology that includes well-planned and well-coordinated local, regional, and worldwide data cross-checks combined with a proprietary advanced data consolidation and analysis data platform managed by IDC's Worldwide Tracker organization. Data sources used in the process of determining IDC's tracker numbers include, but are not limited to:

• In-country local vendor interviews
• Distribution data feeds
• Worldwide and regional vendor guidance
• ODM data
• In-country local channel partner discussions
• Import records
• Feedback from component suppliers
• Vendor briefings and public financial reports

IDC trackers provide the accurate and timely market size, vendor share, and forecast information you need to identify market and product expansion opportunities, increase revenue, and win market share. IDC's tracker research is a critical input to the planning and monitoring cycles of the business process. Common uses of the tracker data include:

Planning Process

• Regional-, state- or city-level planning — setting regional-, country-, state-, or city-level sales targets based on market opportunity
• Product marketing — creating a product strategy and road map based on currently available product features and expected growth
• Production planning — using customer demand data as an input in the creation of production schedules
• Product portfolio planning — accessing accurate and detailed data as an input into the product development process

Monitoring Process

• Performance measurement — comparing vendor performance on prior fiscal periods
• Competitive analysis — reviewing competitor performance across multiple dimensions: product, features, channel, segment, geography
• Sales forecasting measurement — assessing internal sales forecast versus actual results
• Price benchmarking — comparing vendor versus market pricing data by model
• Marketing communications — using positive results for messaging in the press, at partner events, or in sales collateral