Check Point Software’s Earnings Call and Nokia’s Security Appliance Business

28 Jan 2009

Check Point Software, the company that is likely to employ me relatively soon, has announced their Q4 2008 earnings, and they were above analyst expectations. While you can read the press release for the numbers, what is of interest to me at the moment is what they were saying about the Nokia Security Appliance Business acquisition. Fortunately, the folks at Seeking Alpha did a transcript of the earnings call and there were some juicy tidbits.

With the disclaimer that these are “forward looking statements” and may not reflect the true reality that happens, here’s what I took away from this:

Check Point expects the vast majority of employees from Nokia’s Security Appliance business to join Check Point. This thread came up in several questions asked by the analysts.
Customers can expect full availability and support for all Nokia’s current Security Appliance products.
The acquisition will be accretive to Check Point’s bottom line in 2009.
From Check Point CEO Gil Shwed: “The major lessons which we’ve learned [with respect to acquisitions is] we will need to be very sensitive to the channel needs and to the customer needs. We know all of that and we’ll keep that in our mind.”
Q4 2008 was on-target and Q1 2009 looks promising, despite the economic situation.
The security industry overall seems less affected overall by the economic conditions. Enterprises still need a secure network and don’t tend to rip out gateways and other security products to save money.

I recommend reading the transcript, typos and all, or listening to the webcast. Lots of good stuff there.

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