We are at the end of an era. First the EOL of Cisco's Pix firewall and now Nokia, the cell phone giant, is finally selling its security appliance business. It terms of revenue there was a time when this business was the number three firewall company in the world after Check Point and Cisco. Nokia bundled products from Check Point and ISS on hardware platforms that they had originally acquired from Ipsilon Networks in 1997 to create a purpose built appliance running a derivative of BSD. Through superior customer support and taking advantage of Check Point’s lack of an appliance strategy, Nokia’s security division thrived.
In a press release Nokia said:
As a further step towards ensuring a clear focus on its core mobility business, Nokia is also announcing that it is in the advanced stages of discussions for the potential sale of its security appliances business to a financial investor. "If this transaction is concluded, it would be an extremely positive development for the security appliance business, which will be able to realize its full potential under new ownership.
It never made sense for a huge telecom equipment manufacturer to be in the Check Point appliance business. Five years ago would have been a great time to spin off the business so that they could have developed their own firewall and network security technology and gone head to head with Checkpoint. As it is they missed the opportunity to get into the UTM space with combined capability for VPN, firewall, AV, and URL filtering.
This is a turbulent time to be trying to sell a business that frankly lacks a stand-alone brand and needs significant investment in R&D to catch up.
Check out Andy Hay's take on the Nokia divestiture. Funny.
About Stiennon
Richard Stiennon is a security industry analyst. He is currently consulting, speaking and writing on all manner of security topics for IT-Harvest, the IT research firm he founded to cover the security space. He was most recently chief marketing officer for Fortinet. He has served stints at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Gartner, and Webroot Software.
The opinions expressed in this Weblog are those of the writer and may not represent the opinions of Network World.
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No R&D? No brand? Stiennon confused...
Stiennon doesn't get it, as usual:
>This is a turbulent time to be trying to sell a
>business
Oh, you noticed? Here's your GOTO (Grasp Of The Obvious) award. Enjoy...
>that frankly lacks a stand-alone brand and needs
>significant investment in R&D to catch up.
As always, when you don't know anything about the product or the technology, it's easy to throw off one-liners. Such is the life of a blogophile brand builder. But reality is quite different.
Nokia's appliances have had a serious brand. More so in them furrin' countries that Stiennon doesn't seem to pay attention to than in the US, but as recently as a few years ago Network Computing did a test of firewalls where they tested Nokia, and Check Point, and gave them different scores (version slew). And Network World, in their last firewall test, did the same thing. (You know Network World, right? They're the ones giving you a platform to espouse confusion...) The brand is there, Rich, if you'd only get off the phone and walk around a lot more computer rooms.
As to the comment about R&D, I have no idea where your "R&D research program" has been, but clearly you haven't been looking at the actual hardware. Nokia's current IPSO offerings blow away, from a hardware perspective, the thinly remarketed stuff Check Point is selling on its own and are solid in a hardware and software and functionality and clustering way that Secure Platform just can't touch. Of course, having never looked under the covers, I understand why you might think that their latest and greatest isn't hot---I'm sure that Nokia's defective PR team hasn't bothered to kow-tow to the Stiennon-god about how wonderful they are.
Nokia has enough problems without nonsensical FUD from the Stiennon-god being spread. Hush up, Rich, and go back to predicting the death of IPS or NAC or whatever it is this week.
Nokia's Security Appliance
Right on, G-HS Wonk!! Sold a boatload of them and the customers didn't seem to fret about them being "non-branded" and lacking in R&D.
too gray?
Wow, an anonymous commenter with a big mouth and favorite vendor to promote. As if I don't get enough of that from Shimel and friends.
Get this. Nokia does not produce a firewall. They are not a firewall vendor. They bundle third party software on a standardized platform they have developed using Ipsilon's original technology beefed up with some good reliable hardware engineering. Think Crossbeam (the Nokia look-alike). From their web site:
Nokia makes cell phones and telecom equipment. They sell a lot of those. It NEVER made sense for them to be in the Checkpoint reseller business. I sure hope the spinoff creates a stand alone vendor that can continue to innovate and maybe even develope their own products to sell on those platforms.
As a quick brand test Google "Nokia". Notice that you cannot find any mention of the security appliances in the first two pages. What Nokia has is brand confusion. (The main business overshadows the miniscule business) Something you have been exposed to as well obviously.
Well, they do have a bit of a point
Yes, Nokia doesn't have their OWN firewall software, but the point I think that your anonymous critic was trying to make is that the Nokia BRAND is so powerful that it has created the perception that there is such a thing as a "Nokia Firewall" even though there isn't. In other words, there is substantial branding, even though they are offering Check Point's product. Of course, it is important to their success that Check Point is behind it---they wouldn't have gotten this far selling hardware with any other firewall software.
The brand is often everything. You only have to walk into an "all Cisco shop" to understand just how powerful that is.
Not sure on whether it "never made sense" to be in the HW business. They have had MANY businesses over time (I have a set of Nokia boots, in the original box, in my garage somewhere). To the extent that these businesses can be a standalone entity, much as Nokia-Siemens is, there are some complementary features.
Comparing Nokia and Crossbeam is fair, although they compete in different markets. Crossbeam is not really attractive unless you're huge ginormous, while Nokia has those little IP290s (and smaller, I suppose) that are cheap solid platforms. I don't know if Nokia scales up to what X80 does either. Obviously, there is some overlap, and the comparison is apt in some ways.
jms
End of an Era
I installed hundreds of these things. Thanks for remarking on the end of this era. The press release mentioned that a "financial investor" was getting the business? I wonder who that is? Be sure to keep us updated!
Lacking R&D?
Not sure what planet you are on but the IP690's make gangbuster firewalls and intrusion prevention platforms that make no apologies to anyone.
Nokia's hardware engineering far surpasses Checkpoints as well as a lot of other Gartner approved magic quadrant garbage. The only company I see as being more on the ball is probably Juniper with their SSG firewalls and IDP systems.
The sell off by Nokia will be a boon for Juniper since I, like many security managers, won't want to wait too long for the purchasing firm to roll make a convincing case to stay before we bolt for safer quarters.
Planet reality?
Bunch of hardware. Big deal. Crossbeam does that too. What about AV research what about a firewall/IPS solution? That's what I mean.
Agree that the hardware rocks but they do not engineer security solutions.
-Stiennon
Kind of agree....
Hi there, I do agree in that Nokia's are leading edge, however you've got to agree that the bang for buck has become less and less over the years and now it's very hard to justify a Nokia box over anything else to a customer? I mean financials use Nokia's because they use Nokia's so they have massive business there. We support som massive financial companies and they demand Nokia (and pay A LOT for it!) but they only do it because they have always done it if you see what I mean? However, even some of those are now moving to Crossbeams as they offer better price/performance.
I say this feeling quite sad as I've been installing and working with Nokia IP series firewalls for around 10 years but I think Nokia unfortunately are reaching the end of the road.
Not trying to anger anyone here by the way!
Jon
Nokia reliability
One command for you - uptime.
A decade ago the over engineered workhorse for Check Point systems was SUN. You could run those things for years without the need to reboot, most of the reboots I saw were due to system patches/upgrades - system crashes were very rare. The only thing I've seen come close to that for a Check Point firewall platform has been Nokia. Of course you can build your own systems, but most large organizations don't want to dedicate the resources to do that. Nokia's competitors need to take the opportunity to spin reliability.
I just read the press from
I just read the press from Nokia as well as some news from another sight. I thought originally that stinks, but after further review I learned a few things.
While Nokia has always focused on mobility, the security business ran itself and is profitable (Very). So that means they are being purchased as a whole not sold off due to loss of revenue, etc. Also means all the things I have wanted them to do can probably happen since the are not under the Nokia umbrella.
I have used Nokia for years and while they been a bit more pricey (Not as much so lately) they have delivered better support as well as some nice new hardware that I will continue to look at.
If they are purchased by someone who is a backer not another security firm, they will be better since the will have a security focus not a phone focus as I always felt they did. Bottom line is they still are probably the best firewall hardware available (much better then the Check Point M and their Power One line that I learned is Portwell boxes with a Check Point face plate).
I am watching...this could be real good.
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