The expanding and complex enterprise technology landscape, driven by digital transformation and the rapid growth of AI, presents significant cyber security challenges. To address increasingly sophisticated threats and evolving attack surfaces, organisations are prioritising comprehensive security platforms that are underpinned by AI. Palo Alto Networks and IBM aim to help streamline and transform security operations, stop threats at scale, and accelerate incident remediation for their customers with the complete AI-powered approach that is required. These industry dynamics, paired with today's partnership announcement, present significant opportunities for both companies.

Palo Alto to acquire Qradar SaaS assets

As part of this expanded partnership, Palo Alto Networks has agreed to acquire IBM's Qradar SaaS assets, including Qradar intellectual property rights, subject to customary closing conditions. Upon closing, Palo Alto Networks and IBM will facilitate the migration of Qradar SaaS clients to Cortex XSIAM, a leading next-generation security operations (SOC) platform, with advanced AI-powered threat protection supported by 3,000 out-of-the-box detectors. On-premise (on-prem) Qradar clients who wish to remain on Qradar on-prem will continue to receive IBM features and support including security, usability and critical bug fixes, as well as updates to existing connectors and the ability to expand consumption. For both Qradar SaaS and on-prem clients who chose to migrate to Cortex XSIAM, the companies, along with their ecosystem of business partners, will closely collaborate to enable a smooth transfer, with IBM and Palo Alto Networks offering no-cost migration services to qualified customers. As part of this agreement, IBM will receive incremental payments from Palo Alto Networks for Qradar on-prem clients who choose to migrate to the Cortex XSIAM platform.

Nikesh Arora, Chairman and CEO, Palo Alto Networks comments on the move. "The security industry is at an inflection point where AI will transform businesses and deliver outcomes not seen before. It's a moment to accelerate growth and innovation. Together with IBM, we will capitalise on this trend, combining our leading security solutions with IBM's pioneering Watsonx AI platform and premier services to drive the future of security platformisation with complete, AI-powered, secure-by-design offerings."

Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO, IBM, adds. "Strategic partnerships like the one we're announcing today with Palo Alto Networks bring with them significant benefits across the industry. Advanced threat protection and automation, underpinned by Cortex XSIAM and Watsonx, and coupled with IBM Consulting, will speed client and partner adoption of next-generation security operations. We'll deliver these capabilities with Palo Alto Networks, and accelerate our security investments and innovation in areas like data security and identity and access management. These are critical offerings that our clients need when protecting their data, hybrid cloud environments, AI models and applications. We are delighted to be partnering with the Palo Alto Networks team and we are excited about the future of AI-powered cyber security innovation."