IBM on Wednesday agreed to sell its QRadar SaaS assets to Palo Alto Networks as part of a new partnership between the two companies.
QRadar is a long-standing part of IBM’s product line, originally launched as a security information and event management (SIEM) product before it was expanded to offer additional capabilities such as extended detection and response (EDR). The most recent launch involving QRadar came one year ago with the announcement of QRadar Suite, a subscription offering that combines various QRadar products such as SIEM and EDR with AI enhancements.
As part of Wednesday’s announcement, the two companies explained pre-existing QRadar SaaS clients will have their subscriptions and deployments transferred to Palo Alto Network’s equivalent platform, Cortex XSIAM. IBM will continue to support on-premises QRadar customers. Furthermore, IBM will receive incremental payments from Palo Alto Networks for QRadar on-prem clients who choose to migrate.
And for both SaaS and on-prem customers that migrate, the two companies promised “no-cost migration services” to those qualified.
The companies also announced Wednesday that, as part of this expanded partnership, Palo Alto Networks will become IBM’s preferred security partner for internal security solutions. The two companies said they will establish a joint security operations center (SOC) that offers managed SOC services to customers.
Additionally, Palo Alto Networks will incorporate IBM Watsonx large language models (LLMs) into its Cortex XSIAM platform. Cybersecurity vendors across the industry have embraced generative AI and LLMs over the last 18 months since the public launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the fall of 2022.
“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,” Nikesh Arora, Chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, said in a press statement. “Together with IBM, we will capitalize on this trend, combining our leading security solutions with IBM’s pioneering watsonx AI platform and premier services to drive the future of security platformization with complete, AI-powered, secure-by-design offerings.”
Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close by the end of September.
TechTarget Editorial contacted IBM and Palo Alto Networks for additional comment.
Forrester principal analyst Allie Mellen told TechTarget Editorial that IBM was surrendering its SIEM business, and that “as soon as contractual obligations run out, existing QRadar SaaS customers need to embrace XSIAM or migrate to a different vendor.”
“IBM has faltered in recent years as it attempted to shift QRadar to the cloud. Customers were frustrated with a perceived lack of innovation from IBM Security, leading to its release of QRadar Log Insights and QRadar SIEM SaaS. Its security focus is being shifted away from the focal point of its security product portfolio, which is a massive change for IBM Security,” she wrote in an email. “This is the biggest concession of a SIEM vendor to an XDR vendor so far and signals a sea change for the threat detection and response market.”
As far as Palo Alto Networks go, Mellen said the acquisition was about QRadar’s customer base.
“According to the announcement, current ‘qualified’ QRadar SaaS customers will be provided a no-cost migration path to Cortex XSIAM by IBM and PANW,” she said. “Not only that, but ‘qualified’ QRadar on-prem customers will be offered no-cost migration option as well. PANW clearly does not have long-term plans for the QRadar SaaS offering.”
Alexander Culafi is a senior information security news writer and podcast host for TechTarget Editorial.
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