After previously being left at the altar, Alphabet Inc. reached a deal Tuesday through its Google business to buy Wiz for $32 billion in an effort to embrace the growing use of multicloud among major governments and enterprise environments.
The deal was reached amid a rapid acceleration of AI adoption, the need to strengthen cloud security in the enterprise and the desire of major organizations to operate in a multicloud environment. Wiz products are found across the major cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud.
Google sees the Wiz acquisition as opening up a platform to offer security solutions well beyond Google Cloud customers to all types of organizations, regardless of size.
“Security is a fundamental priority for government leaders and CEOs around the world, but the landscape is changing,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and parent company Alphabet, said on a conference call Tuesday.
“The pace and impact of breaches are accelerating. AI brings new risks, but also new opportunities,” he said. “And at the same time, multicloud and hybrid are becoming the norm.”
Talks on a $23 billion deal in 2024 previously fell apart between the two companies.
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said the agreement will help customers lower the total cost of maintaining strong security across multicloud environments as well as on premises.
A wide range of organizations rely on the Wiz security platform, including startup firms to large corporations and government organizations. The platform, which includes cloud-native application protection, provides security through the entire development lifecycle, so security and development teams both use the service.
Google had been working on its own CNAPP platform but had been under pressure to expand those capabilities after Microsoft acquired CloudKnox in 2021 and also developed Defender for Cloud, according to Andras Cser, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester.
“Independent CNAPP suite providers now face fierce competition from cloud infrastructure providers to stay ahead in features,” Cser said. “This planned acquisition plus Microsoft’s continued investments in CNAPP and app security will make it harder for these vendors to maintain and realize their growth.
