Right Said Shwed: Data Security Paying Off For Check Point Partners

Check Point's $586 million acquisition of Swedish mobile encryption firm Pointsec, which closed in January, was aimed at integrating data security into Check Point's management architecture, and that goal is well on its way to being realized, Chairman and CEO Gil Shwed told about 600 channel and vendor partners at the Check Point Experience 2007 conference, being held this week in Orlando, Fla.

Check Point now has a fully integrated and managed endpoint security component, with Pointsec's mobile encryption and port level security technologies adding the last piece to the puzzle, said Shwed.

Adding data security to its existing set of network security products allows Check Point to fill an important gap in its product portfolio, and Shwed said he expects data security to generate some $100 million in revenue in 2007.

Several channel partners told CRN they're eager to add encryption and port-level security to their portfolios.

"We were excited right away about the Pointsec acquisition," said Chris Boykin, senior security consultant at Got Net Security, a Friendswood, Texas-based solution provider. "Full disk encryption will open doors, and port security is a nice add-on feature that's centrally manageable."

In the wake of the Pointsec deal, one of the biggest obstacles on the sales side was the integration of the management teams, but that effort is complete, said Lou Rubbo, principal at Denver-based integrator and Check Point partner DirSec.

Another hurdle Check Point faced was nudging Pointsec away from its partially direct sales culture to embrace Check Point's more channel friendly counterpart, but much progress has been made on that front as well, said Rubbo.

"Check Point has brought [Pointsec] so much more breadth of opportunity, where before they had a somewhat limited capacity model," Rubbo said.

Check Point's placement of several Pointsec executives in key U.S. management positions is a reflection of how important data security is to its strategy, said Shwed.

"We strengthened the U.S. management team, which was important because the Americas and U.S. contribute 20 percent of our sales, and is the biggest market we have," said Shwed.

Acquiring Pointsec also enabled Check Point to bring in the type of people that fit with its corporate culture, noted Shwed. "It's hard to find the right people in the marketplace, and we didn't want to bring in a bunch of direct sales guys," he said.

Shwed also announced Check Point's Open Performance Architecture, a framework of security acceleration technologies that allows for thorough traffic inspection without negatively impacting network performance, which is crucial for large enterprise and data center environments.

The Open Performance Architecture stems from Check Point's internal efforts and takes advantage of chipmaking advances from Intel, and is now available in Check Point's VPN-1 Power line of security gateways, Shwed said.