New York (AFP) – Google said Tuesday it will acquire cloud security platform Wiz for $32 billion, citing the need for greater cybersecurity capacity as artificial intelligence embeds itself in technology infrastructure. The all-cash deal brings Wiz into the Google Cloud operation, boosting the capacity of consumers to use “multiple clouds” and providing “an end-to-end security platform for customers, of all types and sizes, in the AI era,” the companies said in a joint statement. The deepening influence of AI makes “cybersecurity increasingly important in defending against emergent risks and protecting national security,” they added.
The transaction, the largest ever sought by Google or parent Alphabet, will test US President Donald Trump’s openness to large takeovers after resistance to such deals by the administration of his predecessor Joe Biden. Alphabet had been close to a Wiz takeover last summer, but company leaders opted to stay independent at the time with an eye towards an initial public offering, Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport said in a message to employees after the earlier deal fell apart.
Started in 2020 by the Israeli-born Rappaport and a team who sold a previous venture to Microsoft, Wiz is based in New York, with offices in three other US cities and Tel Aviv. In a webcast after the deal was announced, Rappaport said the service “continuously scans an organization’s code and cloud environments, monitoring them in real time,” allowing it to “prioritize the most critical risk based on real impact and (block) active threats.”
After the deal closes, Wiz will operate as a Google company that still provides services to other tech giants including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, making it like the operation of Mandiant, another cybersecurity company Google acquired three years ago, said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “With Wiz, we believe we will vastly improve how security is designed, operated and automated, providing an end-to-end security platform for customers to prevent, detect and respond to incidents across all major clouds,” Kurian said.
Google’s cloud business has grown significantly over the last decade, garnering more than $43 billion in revenue in 2024, up nearly 31 percent from the prior year. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the Google-Wiz deal could be the first of many with the departure of Lina Khan, the Biden-era head of the Federal Trade Commission, who was considered hostile to tech industry consolidation. “While the merger & acquisition environment has been extremely quiet to start the year, we believe that this acquisition will open the door to a massive wave of M&A across the tech landscape,” Ives said.
The cybersecurity industry is especially well suited “as more cloud operators look to secure their cloud portfolios while more cyber names look to capitalize on their all-in-one platform approaches by scooping up undervalued companies and improving their offerings,” Ives said. But the Trump administration’s move to block Hewlett Packard’s takeover of Juniper Networks stands as evidence of Trump’s “potentially tougher stance on Big Tech M&A than the markets may have thought,” said Briefing.com, which described Google’s pursuit of Wiz as logical. Adding Wiz would “immediately make Google a meaningful contender in the cybersecurity market,” Briefing.com said. Shares of Google parent Alphabet fell 2.3 percent in afternoon trading.
© 2024 AFP
