Report: Fed Info Assurance Spending to Reach $6.7 B by 2005

Patience Wait, Staff Writer


NOV. 2 ? Federal government spending on information assurance products and services will grow at an average rate of 20 percent annually during the next five years, rising from an estimated $2.7 billion in 2000 to $6.7 billion by 2005, according to a new industry report.


The Government Electronics and Information Technology Association, which released the report Nov. 1, also projected dramatic increases in private-sector spending on information assurance, saying it would grow from $24.6 billion in 2000 to more than $64 billion in 2005.


These projections are based on the sales of companies in the information assurance market.


"This market is probably bigger than this because we only used 112 companies [in our survey,] and there are more than 112 companies [in information assurance]," said Dennis McCallam, co-chair of the GEIA team that prepared the report.


McCallam also said the forecasts are conservative, because a successful attack on government or commercial information technology could spur significant additional investment in information assurance.


This is the first time the association has prepared an information assurance forecast. The GEIA serves as the government market arm of the Electronic Industries Alliance, a trade organization in Arlington, Va., representing more than 2,100 companies in telecommunications, electronics and IT systems.


Information assurance is not listed as a line item in federal budgets, either in Defense Department or civilian agencies, but instead is included within IT budgets, GEIA team members said. Thus, the expected increased spending on information assurance would come as government officials begin shifting priorities within their IT budgets to address information assurance requirements.