Check Point

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.

Type	Public NASDAQ-100 component
Traded as	NASDAQ: CHKP
Industry	IT security Computer software Computer hardware
Founded	1993
Headquarters	Tel Aviv, Israel (before May 2007: Ramat Gan)
Key people	Gil Shwed, Founder, Chairman & CEO Marius Nacht, Founder
Products	FireWall-1, VPN-1, UTM-1, Check Point Integrity, Intrusion prevention systems, Endpoint, security, Security appliances, Web Application Security
Revenue	US$ $1,097.9 million (2010)
Net income	US$ $452.8 million (2010)
Employees	2,200 (2010)[1]
Subsidiaries	ZoneAlarm, SofaWare
Website	www.checkpoint.com

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: CHKP) is a global provider of IT security solutions. Best known for its firewall and VPN products, Check Point first pioneered the industry with FireWall-1 and its patented stateful inspection technology. Today the company develops, markets and supports a wide range of software and combined hardware and software products that cover all the aspects of IT security, including network security, endpoint security, data security and security management.

Founded in 1993 in Ramat-Gan, Israel, Check Point today counts approximately 2,300 employees worldwide. The company's development centers are located in Israel, California (ZoneAlarm), Sweden (Former Protect Data development centre) and in Belarus. The company also has offices in the United States, in Redwood City, California and in the Dallas, Texas area, as well as in Canada in the Ottawa, Ontario area.

Contents 1 History 2 Products 3 Acquisitions 4 SofaWare Legal Battle 5 Certification 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

History

Check Point was established in 1993, by the company’s current Chairman & CEO Gil Shwed, at the age of 25, together with two of his friends, Marius Nacht (currently serving as Vice Chairman) and Shlomo Kramer (who left Check Point in 2003 to set up a new company – Imperva, where he serves as President and CEO). Gil had the initial idea for the company’s core technology known as stateful inspection, which became the foundation for the company’s first product (simply called FireWall-1); soon afterwards they also developed one of the world’s first VPN products (VPN-1).^[2] Shwed developed the idea while serving in the Israel Defense Forces, where he worked on securing classified networks. ^[3][4]

Initial funding of $600,000 was provided by BRM Group, a venture capital fund established by brothers Eli and Nir Barkat (who on November 11, 2008 was elected as mayor of Jerusalem).^[5]

The company’s first commercial breakthrough came in 1994 when Check Point signed an OEM agreement with Sun Microsystems,^[2] followed by a distribution agreement with HP in 1995.^[6] The same year, the U.S. head office was established in Redwood City, California.

By February 1996, the company was named worldwide firewall market leader by IDC with a market share of 40 percent.^[7] In June 1996, Check Point raised $67 million from its initial public offering on NASDAQ.^[8]

In 1998, Check Point established a successful partnership with Nokia, which bundled Check Point’s Software with Nokia’s computer Network Security Appliances,^[9] by 2000 the company became the world’s leading provider of VPN solutions (in terms of market share).^[2] During the 2000s, Check Point started acquiring other IT security companies, culminating in the acquisition of Nokia’s network security business unit in 2009, just over 10 years after first establishing the partnership with Nokia.^[10]

Products

Check Point offers the following primary solutions and product lines, which are sold to small and medium businesses (SMBs), enterprises, managed service providers, and telecommunications carriers:

• Network Security - Check Point's core business has historically focused on network security components including Firewall, IPsec VPN, Mobile Access, Intrusion Prevention, Antivirus, Anti-spam, URL filtering, Data Loss Prevention and Application Control. These products are deployed as software on x86 based servers or appliances, either from technology partners like Crossbeam and Hewlett-Packard, or on Check Point’s own line of appliances which includes Safe@Office, UTM-1 Edge, UTM-1, Power-1, IP Appliances, and Integrated Appliance Solutions platforms.

• Virtualization Security - The Security Gateway VE product for virtual environments, which runs on VMware ESX and ESXi, secures virtual machines and applications via either hypervisor integration using the VMSafe API, or as a VMware network appliance. A separate product called VPN Power-1 VSX can host multiple virtual security gateways on a single machine.

• Data Security - Data security solutions focus on securing data throughout the stages of the data lifecycle. VPNs, access controls, and the DLP security gateway product secure data-in-motion and data-in-use. Check Point Document Security focuses on protecting data-in-use. Full Disk Encryption, Media Encryption and Port Control secure data-at-rest on endpoints.

• Endpoint Security - deployed as a single security agent that combines firewall, antivirus, anti-spyware, full disk encryption, removable media encryption, I/O port protection (e.g. USB), network access control, and a VPN client. The security policies for networked endpoints can be centrally managed from a single location via the Endpoint Policy Management Software Blade product.

• Mobile Security - the Check Point Mobile Access software product provides secure access to corporate resources via a SSL VPN portal for devices such as laptops, mobile phones, and tablet PCs. The Check Point GO USB device provides a secure virtual desktop for Microsoft Windows machines, allowing remote access of the corporate network via a VPN connection, and also contains encrypted storage for confidential data.

• Security Management - Allows administrators to manage events, set policy and apply protections across the entire security infrastructure from a single interface. Solutions are based on the Software Blade architecture, with a portfolio of 11 management software blades including event analysis, correlation, multi-domain security management, and device provisioning.

Acquisitions

• SofaWare Technologies, in January 2002 (partial acquisition).^[11]
• Zone Labs, makers of the ZoneAlarm personal firewall software, in 2003, for $205 million in cash and shares.^[12]
• Protect Data, the holding company for PointSec Mobile Technologies, in a cash deal valued at $586m in late 2006.^[13] Prior to their acquisition by Check Point, Protect Data acquired Reflex Software.^[14]
• NFR security, an intrusion prevention system developer, for $20 million in late 2006, following its failed plan to acquire the larger IPS vendor Sourcefire.^[15]
• Nokia Security Appliances division, was acquired in April 2009.^[10]
• Liquid Machines, a data security startup company based in Boston, was acquired in June 2010.^[16]
• Dynasec, a provider of enterprise governance, risk management, and compliance solutions was acquired in November 2011. Dynasec offers a Web-based enterprise application for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, Basel II compliance, operational risk management, information security management, HIPAA compliance, and internal audit management.^[17]

In 2005, Check Point tried to acquire intrusion prevention system developers Sourcefire for $225 million,^[18] but later withdrew its offer after it became clear US authorities would try to block the acquisition.^[19]

SofaWare Legal Battle

SofaWare Technologies was founded in 1999, as a cooperation between Check Point and SofaWare's founders, Adi Ruppin and Etay Bogner, with the purpose of extending Check Point's success in the enterprise market, to the small business, consumer and branch office market. According to SofaWare's co-founder Adi Ruppin,

"The Company's vision is to take this enterprise-strength technology and make it as simple to use and as affordable as possible without detracting from its quality. One of the key aspects of this effort has been the creation of a management system designed to enable service providers or value added resellers to lift the burden of security management from the end users while at the same time delivering additional services such as automatic security and software updates, content filtering, anti-virus and more. "^[20]

In 2001, SofaWare began selling firewall appliances under the SofaWare S-Box brand.^[21] In 2002, the company started selling the Safe@Office / Safe@Home line of security appliances, under the Check Point brand.^[20] By the fourth quarter of 2002, sales of SofaWare's Safe@Office firewall/VPN appliances skyrocketed, and SofaWare held the #1 revenue position in the worldwide firewall/VPN sub-$490 appliance market, with a 38% revenue market share.^[22]

Relations between Check Point and the SofaWare founders went sour after the company acquisition in 2002.^[11] In 2004, Etay Bogner, co-founder of SofaWare scored a legal victory over Check Point. Bogner sought court approval to file a shareholder derivative suit, claiming Check Point was not transferring funds to SofaWare as required for its use of SofaWare's products and technology.^[11] His derivative suit was ultimately approved and Check Point was ordered to pay SofaWare NIS 13 million for breach of contract.^[11] In 2006, the Tel Aviv District Court Judge ruled that Bogner SofaWare could sue Check Point by proxy for $5.1 million in alleged damage to SofaWare.^[23] Bogner claimed that Check Point, which owns 60% of Sofaware, has behaved belligerently, and withheld monies due for use of SofaWare technology and products^[23] Check Point appealed the ruling, but later lost the appeal.^[24]

In 2009, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that a group of founders of SofaWare, which includes Bogner, has veto power to prevent SofaWare from taking any decision of which he disapproves.^[11] The court ruled that the three founders could not individually exercise their veto power, but only as a group and by majority rule.^[11]

In 2011, Check Point settled all litigation relating to SofaWare. As part of the settlement it acquired the SofaWare shares held by Bogner and Ruppin, and began a process of acquiring the remaining shares, resulting in SofaWare becoming a wholly owned subsidiary.^[25]

Certification

Check Point has a long-running history of training and certification on their products, including the following:

• CPCS - Check Point Certified Specialist
• CCSA - Check Point Certified Security Administrator
• CCSE - Check Point Certified Security Expert
• CCSE+ - Check Point Certified Security Expert Plus
• CCMSE - Check Point Certified Managed Security Expert
• CCMA - Check Point Certified Master Architect

See also

• ZoneAlarm
• VPN-1
• Check Point Abra
• Silicon Wadi

References

Companies of the NASDAQ-100 index Activision Blizzard Adobe Akamai Alexion Pharmaceuticals Altera Amazon.com Amgen Apollo Group Apple Applied Materials Autodesk ADP Avago Baidu Bed Bath & Beyond Biogen Idec BMC Software Broadcom C.H. Robinson CA Technologies Celgene Cerner Check Point Cisco Citrix Cognizant Comcast Costco Ctrip Dell Dentsply DirecTV Dollar Tree eBay Electronic Arts Expedia Expeditors International Express Scripts F5 Networks Fastenal First Solar Fiserv Flextronics Fossil Garmin Gilead Sciences Google Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Hansen Natural Henry Schein Infosys Intel Intuit Intuitive Surgical KLA Tencor Lam Research Liberty Interactive Life Technologies Linear Technology Marvell Mattel Maxim Integrated Products Microchip Technology Micron Technology Microsoft Mylan NetApp Netflix News Corporation Nuance Communications Nvidia O'Reilly Auto Parts Oracle Paccar Paychex Perrigo Priceline.com Qualcomm Randgold Resources Research In Motion Ross Stores SanDisk Seagate Sears Sigma-Aldrich Sirius XM Radio Staples Starbucks Stericycle Symantec Teva Pharmaceutical Verisign Vertex Pharmaceuticals Virgin Media Vodafone Warner Chilcott Whole Foods Market Wynn Resorts Xilinx Yahoo!

External links

• Corporate website