US technology giant Google has agreed to buy Israeli cyber security company Wiz for $32 billion, its biggest acquisition thus far, as it aims to boost its cloud portfolio in the highly competitive segment.
The definitive agreement, which will allow the Alphabet-owned company to catch up with industry leaders Microsoft and Amazon, will help to boost its cloud security and multicloud segments, “two large and growing trends in the AI era”, Google said on Tuesday.
New York-based Wiz, founded in Israel and already a Google Cloud partner, had rejected a previous $23 billion bid from Google in July last year, which still would have been Google's biggest acquisition. Wiz had considered an initial public offering at the time.
The two companies are “aiming to provide customers with better security for enterprise systems and lower the cost of maintaining a strong security posture across their on-premises and multicloud environments”, Thomas Kurian, chief executive of Google Cloud, said.
“Organisations with modern IT environments need a cyber security solution … that can protect against threats to and from AI models, that can use AI to extend defences, and that can fully integrate software development and operations into the security portfolio,” he added.
The adoption of cloud services continue to rise in an evolving digital landscape, underpinned by rapidly rising demand resulting from more consumers and companies relying on these technologies to store their data and power operations.
This has given global cloud and AI service providers incentive to boost their portfolios and offerings by seeking partnerships and acquiring companies, and as they attempt to attract more customers.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) remains the world's biggest cloud infrastructure service provider, with a market share of about 30 per cent as of the fourth quarter of last year, latest data from Synergy Research Group shows.
Microsoft Azure is second, with 21 per cent, followed by Google Cloud's 12 per cent. Rounding out the top five are Alibaba Cloud (4 per cent) and Oracle (3 per cent).
The partnership with Google is expected to enable Wiz to “execute and innovate even faster”, said Wiz co-founder and chief executive Assaf Rappaport. “Becoming part of Google Cloud is effectively strapping a rocket to our backs: it will accelerate our rate of innovation faster than what we could achieve as a stand-alone company”, he added.
Wiz’s products will continue to work and be available across all major clouds, including AWS, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud platforms, and will be offered to customers through an array of partner security solutions, Google said.
Google Cloud will also continue to offer customers a wide choice through a variety of partner security solutions available in the Google Cloud Marketplace, it added.
