Internet security company CheckPoint has overcome SA budget objections by aiming new products at the lower end of the market and amending its licensing policy from one based on number of devices to number of Internet users.
As regards the first, Nick Lowe, regional director for Northern Europe (including SA), says markets like retail and manufacturing often have more client devices than staff traversing the gateway to access the Internet. "It doesn`t make sense to charge on a per-device basis there," he says.
Niall Moynihan, Northern Europe technical director, says revenue has increased "significantly in SA - we think on the back of this". The second change to CheckPoint`s business strategy has been to introduce bundled solutions for small and medium enterprises.
CheckPoint Express includes firewall, VPN, network and application attack protection combined with multi-site, centralised management functions. Express serves organisations of "101 to 500 users", says Moynihan. "The price is key. We wanted to give customers a drop-box solution with application intelligence."
Starting at $3 500, Express is a scaled-down version of the enterprise FW-1, VPN-1 product called Next Generation with Application Intelligence. While CheckPoint competes with Cisco at the high end, Express competes with similar offerings from Symantec.
The edge
Edge products such as the Safe@Office, starting at $299, introduce CheckPoint to small business. Also a complete hardware/software bundle, it addresses the failure of local companies to install firewalls at all, or at branch level. "We have a customer that had a gateway only in Johannesburg - all branch access was via a private line to Johannesburg, and the Internet traffic was enormous," says Moynihan. "With the new offerings, they could afford to take that traffic down by putting an appliance in at Durban.
Although CheckPoint doesn`t disclose regional financial figures, SA accounts for 10% of the Northern Europe region`s revenue. The company`s distribution is done locally via Westcon and VAD Africa, and it has a number of value-added resellers (VARs) and authorised VARs. "With Safe@Office, there is a case to be made for an expanded channel," says Moynihan.
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