Check Point gains strong channel interest in SaaS approach

Check Point is putting the channel emphasis on selling Security as a Service (SaaS) encouraging partners to get involved with a sales approach that provides more margin and lower operating costs.

The security firm launched its Infinity Total Protection offering in January, providing gateway and data protection, threat prevention and web security via the cloud.

The finance models are also in the flavours that managed service providers would expect with per-user, per-year subscriptions available.

Check Point is talking up a 20% improvement in partner margins through selling SaaS as well as the carrot for users of a 25-35% reduction in operating costs.

Nick Lowe,  regional director, Northern Europe at Check Point, said that it offering one environment that could cover the network and mobile devices made it easier for customers to keep their defences up to date.

The timing of the launch of the SaaS offering also coincided with more movement by customers towards the cloud. But most are still dealing with a legacy infrastructure that needs to be protected.

"We wanted to give a commercial framework that would cover all of your security needs today and allow you to migrate as quickly or as slowly as the customer wants to do," he said.

The firm kick started conversations with partners and customers last Autumn to test the appetite for a SaaS offering and since it went live has enjoyed a surge of interest from users who were keen to talk about cloud and security.

Lowe said that the plans also resonated with the channel, which was moving more to the managed services model, and gave them both a cloud and strong security message to take out to the market.

"Resellers are hearing [from customers] that they like the cloud and they get it and the economics of the cloud are stacking up and we want to follow it as an organisation but the security has to be right," he said.

"The channel can provide some of the managed services around it and some of the high end skills to help customers migrate securely to the cloud," he added.

Lowe said that the annuity revenue streams were one benefit from selling SaaS but it also tied the partner much more closely with the customer and that would help support a long term relationship.

The SaaS model is also appealing across a wide customer base, with the mid market in particular looking for a way to help solve their data protection issues.

"They don't have the luxury of being able to deploy an army of security experts but they are acutely aware of the risks they are facing," he said.