Check Point upgrade accelerates up-sell

Security vendor Check Point (NASDAQ:CHKP) has released faster chassis to complement the transition of its customer base to a software blade architecture.

The firm has launched new security appliances – including seven new models and a high-end 21400 model aimed at datacentres and large enterprises giving up to 100 Gbps of firewall throughput. The new hardware is a result, in part, of the firm’s acquisition of the Nokia Firewall business in 2009 and Check Point claims a three times performance increase while sitting at the same price point.

The firm also announced an anti-bot solution as its 36th software add-on for its blade architecture that’s due to ship early next year. The faster hardware is part of strategy to get new and existing customer onto a blade based architecture. Says Check Point’s UK MD, Terry Greer-King (pictured): “It’s important as we load more applications onto one device that we have capable performance.”

Greer-King says with around 50 percent of its customers currently on blade, the new hardware will accelerate the switch. The MD admits that the UK has been slightly behind the curve for Blade adoption but, “Would I want everybody to go to blade well yeah, why? Because of up-sell, and the channel partners grasp that there is opportunity for customers to consolidate their architecture.”

Greer-King believes that customers are eager to collapse firewalls and other security applications onto a unified hardware, with the traditional firewall providing a logical point for systems such as IPS, DLP, logging and other areas.

Even with the growing software add-on, Greer-King insists that all software sales will always go through the channel: “The value-add is not about logistics, [it] is understanding the customer’s infrastructure, risk policy… and how to deploy it. The Check Point view is: it’s a damn sight more than just logistics,” he adds.