Check Point not sour on U.S. companies:

You can’t blame check point Software Technologies CEO Gil Shwed for looking outside the United States for his company’s latest technology acquisition: Swedish firm Protect Data AB.

After all, his Israeli company’s previous attempt to buy a company, intrusion prevention software maker Sourcefire, was unceremoniously squashed by the U.S. government, which expressed “national security” concerns from some three letter U.S. agencies that were Sourcefire’s customers.

This time around, Check Point found its partner far afield from the United States’ amber waves of grain, but Shwed denied that it had anything to do with the outcome of the Sourcefire deal.

According to Shwed, the Protect Data deal grew out of a hard assessment of the security space, future trends, and Check Point’s current portfolio. The outcome was that Check Point, which almost single-handedly launched the network protection market with its firewall technology, had to do more to protect data, rather than just networks.

“Today the infrastructure is protected pretty well,” Shwed said. “You can always do more, but infrastructure is just one step. We decided that we needed to go all the way and protect data.”

Protect Data’s PointSec technology looked like a good bet for Check Point, which plans to integrate the company’s data protection software into its unified security architecture, including management tools, VPN clients, and existing end point security products such as the ZoneAlarm desktop firewall, Shwed said.

Although the United States is a great market for tech firms, many of the leading companies are outside its borders. That may be a byproduct of strict U.S. laws for exporting encryption technology, Shwed said.

But Shwed said that Check Point is still looking for good technology to buy all over the world, including domestically.

For now, Shwed said he is optimistic that future buys — about which he declined to speculate — would pass muster with U.S. regulators and the intelligence community.