'Aggressive' Check Point takes a swing at rivals
UK 'competitive attack' schemes will be designed to cover the cost of resellers that port business to Check Point
Check Point will imminently launch a number of "competitive attack schemes" against its rivals as it bids to grab more market share, its UK managing director has revealed.
Talking to CRN, Keith Bird also pinpointed threat prevention and mobile security as focus areas for the security vendor and its channel this year, following its double swoop on start-ups Hyperwise and Lacoon.
"Last year we grew our business significantly and we are intending to be even more aggressive [this year]," Bird said.
Launching in the "very near future", the competitive attack programmes will be designed to cover the cost of partners that shift business to Check Point from key competitors, which include Fortinet and Palo Alto.
"We will be offering enhanced margins and bonus elements where partners bring business to us where it was previously with a competitor," Bird explained.
Lower-level certified resellers, now known as "2-Star" partners under Check Point's new Star partner programme, will be a particular target of the schemes, he added.
"I recognise there is a cost for resellers in managing vendor partnerships and moving from one vendor to another – or moving their preference from one vendor to another," Bird said. "They must invest time and money in training people and we want to make sure we cover that as much as possible – we will be offering free training to those folks."
Last week, Check Point – not known for making many acquisitions – followed its February purchase of CPU-level threat prevention start-up Hyperwise buy snapping up mobile security outfit Lacoon.
"Two of our key areas of focus this year are around threat prevention – specifically threat emulation – and mobile," Bird explained.
"If you take threat prevention, where security is moving is it is no longer enough to deal with a problem once it happens; you need to stop threats getting into the company in the first place. We made a number of announcements last year on threat prevention and emulation but with the acquisition of Hyperwise that takes threat prevention to the next level as it's at the CPU level, not the application level."
Bird added: "Lacoon completes the picture for our mobile offering. Both acquisitions will drive additional sales for partners. When we've made acquisitions in the past, and it's no different with these two, we are typically not making them because of the size of the company – we have a large customer and channel base so are acquiring technology for them."