Security Portal: Check Point and Linux finally get engaged

“Check Point’s recent announcement of support for the Linux
platform represents the highest profile adoption of Linux within
the security industry to date. It seems rather amazing that only
now, late in 1999 has Linux received such major votes of confidence
considering the tremendous market share it enjoys within the
Internet server segment.”

“Check Point, a long time leader in worldwide firewall market
share, has announced that it will target the release of a Linux
version of its flagship product, Firewall-1 as well as VPN-1 in Q1
of 2000. The development is scheduled to go into limited beta in
January. These products already run on Windows NT and several
versions of Unix, most commonly Sun Solaris. Initially, the
management console for these products will not be ported to Linux,
in part because it is a lower priority but also because of a belief
that determined Linux users can run the management console through
the VMware emulator (of course this is not supported).”

“According to Product Marketing Manager Mike Lee, the demand
for Linux versions of Check Point products has been voiced strongly
from their own reseller/integrator channel. “They already have a
tremendous amount of Linux expertise that they are able to
leverage” and Linux “gives them more flexibility in their solution
offerings to corporate customers.” Lee said that initial
product cost was not a major factor in their decision to adopt
Linux. The Linux products will not be priced differently, nor will
they have different feature sets. Check Point is definitely taking
a “just another ‘Nix” approach to Linux.”

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