Speaking to Infosecurity at the Check Point Experience 2010 – a three-day annual customer and dealer event in London – Shwed said the launch of his firm's new data leak prevention (DLP) products marks the latest stage in Check Point's unified security approach, which he explained started with the company's software blade technology, which was launched last year.
Check Point, says Shwed, now has a portfolio of security products for the small, mid-sized and enterprise segments of the market, but the real challenge, he adds, is developing an effective sales channel strategy.
Put simply, this means signing up dealers and systems integrators that can not only sell products to customers, but support them as well.
So we asked the company's founder: who are Check Point's main competitors
The answer – at the high end of the market – he says, is Cisco and Juniper, but in the mid-sized company marketplace, firms such as Fortinet and Sourcefire have security offerings that are positioned in the same segment as Check Point.
"But we don't actually view them as a competition. Our products in the mid-range security market are not fully comparable [with theirs], so we tend to focus on our strengths, which is cost-effectiveness and the fact that we started our data leak prevention product strategy back in 2006", he said.
According to Shwed, the drivers behind the current interest in DLP amongst customers are not regulatory despite the fact that the Sarbanes Oxley Act imposes quite draconian security requirements on US organisations, and the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK has just significantly increased its penalties for breaches of the Data Protection Act.
"What is happening is that users' approach to security is evolving and they are asking for products that better meet their needs. And their needs now clearly include DLP", he said.
But it's not all plain sailing when it comes to DLP products, as Shwed says the current problem facing the IT security industry is that many of the products and services available in the marketplace at the moment are far too complicated.
Moving on to the new products launched today, which form the centrepiece of Check Point's DLP offerings, Infosecurity asked Shwed how long he thinks it will be before his competitors develop similar DLP-capable products and services.
"That is not of major concern to us. We don't try to meet the competition, but we do try to develop security solutions which our clients ask us to come up with", he said.
He added that, as an established player in the IT security industry, Check Point is not going to change its product strategy simply because a competitor changes theirs.