Palo Alto Networks Purchasing cloud security software assets International Business Machines Corporation This will give the cybersecurity company access to more consultants and a larger customer base as part of a wider partnership.
Palo Alto will acquire IBM’s QRadar cloud software for an undisclosed amount and migrate existing customers to its security platform, Cortex Xsiam, the companies said in a joint press release. IBM will train more than 1,000 consulting employees on Palo Alto’s products.
Consolidation in the security software industry has been accelerating as companies prepare for a flood of attacks driven by artificial intelligence. March, Cisco Completed the $28 billion acquisition of Splunk, the leading provider of security information and event management (SIEM) software, the largest transaction in the networking company’s history.
Earlier Wednesday, two other companies in the SIEM market, Exabeam and Thoma Bravo’s LogRhythm, announced the plan merge.
Palo Alto CEO Nikesh Arora told CNBC that his company needs to be better prepared to fight Splunk.
“Obviously, this is just a hotbed of cybersecurity consolidation activity,” Arora said.
Palo Alto and IBM have been working more closely for months, and Arora said he has been discussing with IBM Chief Executive Arvind Krishna how to move forward with their partnership. But they all sell SIEM software.
“We were trapped there,” Arora said.
Krishna said the Splunk deal did not prompt IBM’s arrangement with Palo Alto.
“I don’t think we’re really competing with most of the products in Cisco’s portfolio,” Krishna said.
December, IBM explain Its consulting team will provide customers with Palo Alto’s competitive Cortex Xsiam software. IBM will now adopt Cortex Xsiam along with Palo Alto’s Prisma Sase 3.0 product package. In addition to using models from Cortex Xsiam, Palo Alto will also integrate IBM’s Watsonx large language model into Cortex Xsiam. Google.
The SIEM category has been around for more than 20 years, but Palo Alto only launched Cortex Xsiam two years ago. It’s gained rapid adoption, with more than $90 million in bookings in the most recent quarter, and Arora said the company has been taking market share from “everyone.”
For IBM, a stronger lineup of modern security consulting tools could help the company achieve its stated goal of mid-single-digit revenue growth in 2024.
Palo Alto is growing much faster than IBM.January quarter revenue up 19%. The company will report its latest quarterly results on Monday.
Palo Alto’s market value more than doubled last year, and its shares are up 6% so far this year, pushing the company’s market value past $100 billion. The stock rose more than 1% in after-hours trading. IBM has gained nearly 5% this year and is now valued at $154 billion.
The deal will close by the end of September, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions, the companies said.
Krishna 在接受採訪時表示：“我預計我們將在Palo Alto 的產品上實現重要的諮詢業務增長，就像我在Azure 和AWS 上所做的那樣。” IBM 協助組織在Amazon 和Microsoft 公有雲上執行其software. He said he hopes to quickly generate hundreds of millions of dollars in new consulting revenue.
Krishna said IBM will continue to sell its QRadar software for local data centers.
“It’s been here for many years,” he said.
In the meantime, IBM will recommend that customers using it consider switching to Palo Alto’s Cortex Xsiam, Krishna said.
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