Google LLC announced the signing of a definitive agreement to purchase cloud platform Wiz Inc for $32 billion. This will strengthen Google Cloud’s cloud service and become the company’s largest acquisition since the purchase of Motorola.
Google LLC announced the signing of a definitive agreement to purchase cloud platform Wiz Inc for $32 billion. This will strengthen Google Cloud’s cloud service and become the company’s largest acquisition since the purchase of Motorola.
As noted in a joint statement, the deal is an investment by Google Cloud aimed at strengthening two areas popular in the era of artificial intelligence: improved cloud security and the ability to use multiple clouds.
«The growing role of artificial intelligence and the adoption of cloud services have dramatically changed the security landscape for customers, making cybersecurity increasingly important to protect against new risks and safeguard national security», — the press release says.
It states that Wiz is an easy-to-use security platform that connects to all major cloud services and programming environments to help prevent cybersecurity incidents. Startups and large companies, as well as government organizations, can use Wiz to protect everything they build and run in the cloud.
Wiz’s integration with Google Cloud is expected to help improve and scale the service, benefiting customers and partners across all major cloud environments. Wiz products will continue to operate and be available across all major cloud environments, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud, and will be offered to customers through a range of partner security solutions.
Google’s intention to acquire Wiz became known last summer. However, it was later revealed that the startup had rejected an offer from Alphabet (Google’s parent company) for a takeover worth up to $23 billion.
«Saying ‘no’ to such attractive offers is very difficult», — Wiz co-founder Assaf Rappaport wrote in a July letter to employees, according to CNBC. According to insiders, Wiz turned down the deal in part because of antitrust laws and investor concerns.
Wiz had planned to go public, but it seems they’ve changed their minds. «By becoming part of Google Cloud, we’re essentially strapping a rocket to our backs: it will accelerate our pace of innovation faster than we could have achieved as a separate company,» Rappaport said of the new deal with Google.
Google’s biggest deal before Wiz was the $12.5 billion acquisition of gadget maker Motorola in 2012. The company later sold some of Lenovo’s assets for $2.9 billion. Google has also made acquisitions in the cybersecurity space in the past, paying $5.4 billion for Mandiant in 2022.
