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Check Point Software has garnered two awards this year in the Firewall / VPN category, a traditional area of strength of the firm, and also in the Unified Threat Management (UTM) category.
According to Cedric Chan, VP for North Asia at Check Point Software, the Greater China and Hong Kong markets have grown rapidly in the last 12-24 months. "We have invested more resources and money in this period than we have in the five years prior to that," he said.
Chan noted that with the markets growing significantly, the company had to find more people, capital and support for its channels operations to support the business as it ramped up. "There is no short-cut to growth-we must invest," he said.
Much of the growth internally has been in China but the Greater China region has see a rise of 75% in terms of staff, with new offices created in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Taiwan. The Hong Kong and Beijing offices have also expanded with more numbers in its sales & marketing teams.
Chan pointed to company transformation that has helped spur the recent growth and success in this market. The company has gone through a process review to identify the most committed and skilled staff and aligning them with the most critical and specific goals. The expansion of channel partners has also been key in allowing Check Point to address not just the tier one customers but also tier two and three which weren't as reachable as before.
"The objective has been to find new customers in previously untapped areas, such as the mid-market enterprises and certain verticals like government and telecoms," said Chan. |
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High growth products
He added that in Greater China the company has 100% year-on-year growth, which included growth in Hong Kong which was considered a major achievement given its status as a mature market.
The Hong Kong office has bolstered its operations in sales, marketing and channels as well as extended the product line with a strong focus on fast growth products like the hardware version of its UTM product
"We're much more than just a firewall software company," said Chan. "We recognize the needs of the smaller mid-market firms that may prefer an integrated hardware platform for their security. But the key is we provide a choice of either adopting a software version or a hardware platform," he added.
Chan also recognized the need for customers to address other areas in security which Check Point has now tried to serve with products in the hardware space and also in the end-point security areas. Its acquisition of PointSec Mobile Technologies has greatly enhanced in offerings in securing devices and user terminals.
"For many workers today, there is a growing range of devices that are being used both for work and personal time and there is a need to secure both the personal and corporate data from all threats," Chan said.
Industry opportunities
From its traditional customer base of most of the top 100 firms in Hong Kong, Check Point is looking to broaden its reach with these firms by looking to provide more protection to these companies right down to the user device level.
In addition, there are key vertical sectors that Check Point hopes to gain more traction in for the coming year. Its strengths have been in finance and banking, manufacturing, trading, retail, some government and logistics verticals.
"This will continue but we hope to get more traction into the telecoms space which is an area we could do better in," admitted Chan. Government was another target market that the firm is aiming to get greater presence in.
Product diversity
In terms of the UTM-1 hardware product, the focus for Check Point is clearly the smaller firms it has now targeted and smaller firms which demand an integrated product as well as simplified deployment and management.
Chan noted that its channel partners are also working hard in adding more value to its customers by offering greater functionality on top of existing firewall offerings.
Again he stressed that Check Point is more than just a firewall provider. "Check Point is now a firm that is focused on data security from the network right down to the end point devices in the enterprise," Chan said.
He added the recent acquisitions have greatly enhanced the company's overall product lines and helped it deliver on client needs as they go through a process of consolidation, management and compliance.
All companies are going through each of these stages and face specific security issues and challenge. "As they go through each phase there are critical security issues that must be addressed and we feel Check Point is in a position to help firms rework their security architecture as they go through the management and organizational changes," said Chan.
The compliance issues aren't quite as immediate here in Asia as they are in US and Europe, he noted. "But firms will be impacted here in time and management of networks and devices are becoming a top priority as staff becomes more mobile and the network is extended beyond the company walls."
He summed up the company's mission by saying: "We will help try to simply the security management challenges and deliver lower TCO by providing integrated platforms and being more tightly aligned with businesses' compliance needs."
Acquisition trail
Growth by acquiring has been key for Check Point this year:
January 2007 -Check Point acquired NFR Security, a leader in real-time threat prevention and creator of award-winning intrusion prevention (IPS) technologies.
November 2006 -Check Point buys Swedish firm, Protect Data, who owns PointSec Mobile Technologies, a leading provider of encryption and other security products for PCs, PDAs and smartphones
March 2006 -Check Point made a bid to acquire Sourcefire, the company that controls the open source IDS software Snort, but plans were stalled by US regulators.
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