Check Point cloud boss talks up channel possibilities

Check Point's head of cloud security believes that the channel has barely scratched the surface in terms of the potential market opportunity.

With more users looking to secure their data in the cloud the expansion in the market has continued throughout this year. It has also become clear that those resellers looking to achieve trusted advisor status can add a range of additional options alongside the products from vendors like Check Point.

Zohar Alon, global head of cloud security at Check Point, said that he felt that there was plenty of room for expansion in the interaction between partners and customers.

"From the channel opportunity and the ecosystem opportunity we are not even scratching it. We can get your security posture to 100%, but to keep it there you need to invest in automation, processes and there is a lot of place for intelligent energy provided by the on the ground channel partner," he said.

He said that an MSP could build a business just around the cloud bot remediation technology but there were also options to add 24/7 monitoring, the logic solution generates insights that somebody needs to check, and it's not uncommon that the customer does not have the bandwidth or expertise," he added.

"I am really pushing channels here in the UK and all over the world to essentially build those value added services as part of a managed service offering. Because the solutions are so broad and deep they can be kind of shared between the security team of the customer and by the specialised partner," he said.

He said that the pressure on customers in terms of time and knowledge that needed to be spent to extract all of the benefits of the technology meant that there was a gap for the channel, which presented "a great business opportunity".

Mike Wakefield, head of UK channel at Check Point, said that the ability to provide a range of cloud security products and services had seen its channel base widen over the course of 2019.

"We have seen growth in both our traditional partners and we've also grown our net number of transacting partners in the last 12 months and a lot of that is cloud driven," he added "Partners seem to find the cloud conversation is the easiest route into new customers."

He said that the market was adopting the technology and its pipeline was strong and partners were taking it to market," In 2020 we are hoping it will just continue to deliver growth for our traditional partners and those born-in-the-cloud partners."

Alon took up the reigns on the cloud side at Check Point after his business Dome9 Security was acquired last year. One of the main changes he experienced after the deal closed was a move to an indirect model and he has been impressed with the benefits that the channel offer.

“Channel has a lot of potential and it was mind blowing how we transitioned in two quarters into full two-tier distribution,” he added “the channel is so critical to success.”