Check Point shines in Munich rain, CEO Shwed hints at future acquisitions

At the event, co-inciding with unusually cold and wet Munich weather, the first fruits of the recent acquisition of PointSec were seen in the integration of encryption tools into Check Point's product line up. Shwed said that focus had been on making encryption fool-proof. He said: “It’s hard to make it simple”.

He denied that the acquisition and strategy was simply to ensure survival in a rapidly consolidating industry. “Check Point doesn’t have an issue with surviving. Look at this conference – we have three times more people here than a year ago,” he said.

Brushing off the efforts of Cisco and others to enter the IT security arena he said that Cisco has been competing with Check Point for 12 years. "The world still needs a company that focuses totally on security,” he said.

At the conference Check Point demonstrated revisions to its management tools in the integrated product line up. A new compliance tool allows real-time monitoring of users behaviour for adherence to internal and external rules.

While admitting that many companies may want to reduce the number of security vendors he said that Check Point was not going to be a supermarket for security products. Future growth for Check Point will likely come from careful further acquisitions and internal developments.

“We are not one of those companies that will grow at any rate just to make news. It must be based on real customer needs and our ability to execute them. We don’t do things because they are fashionable - we do things because they are right.” he said.


Commenting on the wider IT landscape, Shwed said he admired Google but that it had not yet truly changed the desktop. “Microsoft is still the most powerful company in delivering technology to each of our computers,” he said.