Growth for SMB security spending outstrips other IT purchasing

As a category, small and midsize businesses will spend $5.6 billion on security technology by 2015, according to a new forecast from research firm International Data Corp.

While that in itself probably doesn't shock you, what interests me is that growth on security spending during the next three years is projected to grow at double the rate of the growth for other IT products or services, IDC believes.

The biggest overriding factor in this shift?

You guessed it, mobile technology. SMBs are waking up to the fact that man of the devices that employees are using -- sanctioned or otherwise -- weren't necessarily built with the same attention to access control and malware protection that traditional IT products.

That means spending on all six major security product areas will grow between now and 2015, including endpoint protection, messaging filters, network access, Web, identity and access management, IDC predicts.

SMBs are looking for simple ways to get these things up and running, so security as a service and security appliances that are preconfigured are projected to post double-digit growth rates during the next three years.

Security was a top priority for about 19 percent of the smallest companies included in the IDC research, those with less than 100 employees. That number grew to 36 percent of the midsize companies with up to 999 employees.

Are your security technology buying habits in synch with other SMBs?