Secon jumps into bed with Check Point

Security reseller says Check Point will be fourth core vendor alongside Websense, Juniper and Trend Micro

Security reseller Secon is confident it can become one of Check Point's top UK partners after throwing its weight behind the firewall giant.

Secon managing director Rob Gupta said the duo had been "flirting" for the past decade but began working together formally only this summer. Check Point will be Secon's fourth core vendor alongside incumbents Trend Micro, Websense and Juniper.

"We've been courting Check Point for over 10 years but now it is official," he explained. "Their story resonates with what we are telling our clients."

Secon is currently a Silver partner but is training its engineers on Check Point's technology with a view to achieving Gold status, Gupta said. The move should not be taken as a sign that Secon's relationship with rival firewall vendor Juniper has cooled, he added.

"Juniper has a very wide portfolio not only covering security but also networking and we have always stuck to our niche, which is security," he explained. "We are continuing to train our engineers on the security part of Juniper's portfolio but we are not an overall Juniper partner."

Secon pared down its vendor portfolio in 2011 and Gupta said it is a balancing act to ensure it can cater for its clients' needs without spreading its engineering resource too thinly.

"We can spread three or four vendors across our engineers and still have a deep focus on those vendors," he said. "These four vendors cover about 80 per cent of the security needs of our customers – the last 20 per cent is really bespoke in terms of each end user's culture and what they need."