Analysts: Nokia move to affect Check Point

Check Point shares fell 76 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $22.42 in midday trading.

Check Point's software runs on the appliances the Nokia unit makes and runs, and Cowen & Co. analyst Walter Pritchard said the relationship makes up about a third of Check Point's installed base.

A sale by Nokia would has "neutral to negative" implications for Check Point, Pritchard wrote. A buyer, he said, could end the relationship with Check Point and use other software, becoming a competitor on that side. This is all the more likely, he said, because Check Point is already making its own appliances, competing with Nokia's hardware business.

But overall, Pritchard said, Check Point "remains a decent place for investors to hide," as there are indications that security software spending is holding up better than general enterprise software.

Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Shaul Eyal said a sale by Nokia would be mildly negative, but he remained positive over the long term, since a deal could allow Check Point to be more aggressive about going after Nokia accounts with its own appliances.

Both analysts kept their "Outperform" ratings on Israel-based Check Point.