...good progress. I think that the rest of the government is pretty much committed to that.
What's the corporate tax right now in Israel?
It's 26 percent, but we already have a reform move in the process that will take it to 25 percent.
By 2006?
I don't remember, exactly — two years, three years — something like that.
Is there much business within the region between Israeli high-tech companies and some of Israel's neighbours?
No, not much, except Turkey. But in Egypt or Jordan, there's some, but it's completely insignificant.
Let's talk about India. How is Israel going to adjust to the
challenge of a much larger country with an increasingly tech-literate
work force that's also less expensive to hire out?
I think the reason Israel is successful is not because of labour rates.
The issue is skills for developing new products. Israel can compete
with India without having thousands and thousands of people for tasks
like call centres.
What are you seeing out of India — and China, for that matter — as far as possible competitors to Check Point?
We're not seeing any competitors for Check Point from China or India.
Do you have a sense of what IT demand is shaping up to be for 2006?
I don't see much of a slowdown. The benchmark that we all have now is
what happened between 1997 and 2000, and that was a very unusual period
for economic growth. So when we say today that the economy is healthy,
it's not the same. I think that high-tech companies do have to work
pretty hard to justify their value.
One of the criticisms you've probably heard is that Check Point
has been slow to roll out new products. Do you need to accelerate your
timetable?
I think that criticism probably belongs to two years ago. Since then,
we've rolled out a lot of new products. If you look at our product
portfolio today, it's hugely richer than what it was two years ago.
Are you seeing much increased competition from Cisco?
No. We have competed against Cisco for 10 years, so there's nothing new
about that. Of the dozens of products they acquired over the years
through acquisitions, none is a big leader. We're trying to present a
slightly different alternative — one of being focused on security and
offering an architecture that people can use to build an entire
security solution.
Is most of your product development coming out of Israel, or is it here in the US?
Most of it is in Israel, but we have here [in the US] an amazing group.
By the way, we've got some research and development teams in other
parts of the world — including a research centre in Minsk.
A number of high-tech executives in this country have found a
career in the public sphere after leaving the business world. After
Check Point, have you considered some sort of career in government?
Not at the moment. I don't know — maybe in 20 years, I'll change my
mind. Right now, I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing. I'm not ashamed
to express my opinion and talk about things. But being successful in
the software business doesn't mean that I'm becoming the new authority
on the peace process. I may have my opinions as a citizen, but it's no
different than anybody else.
