Palo Alto Networks benefitting with ‘very large’ wins post IBM QRadar deal

Following Palo Alto Networks’ acquisition of the IBM QRadar SaaS business, the cybersecurity company has had a warm partnership with IBM, helping to deliver on the goal of driving customers to the company’s XSIAM security operations platform.

This was announced by Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora to analysts during the company’s quarterly call last Thursday.

The cybersecurity giant closed on its $500 million acquisition of IBM’s QRadar SaaS business in September 2024, and the company has been heavily focused on enabling customer migrations to its Cortex XSIAM (extended security intelligence and automation management) platform from QRadar.

IBM has been supportive in helping to migrate customers to XSIAM, which helped to bolster Palo Alto Networks’ financial results during its latest quarter, just like the cybersecurity company had hoped.

All in all, the “inroads and the partnership that IBM had with many of these customers has translated into very, very large opportunities for us,” CEO Nikesh Arora said. “So it couldn't have been better.”

Arora pointed to one deal closed during the vendor’s fiscal second quarter, ended Jan. 31, which saw annual recurring revenue increase by five times at a financial services firm that had been a QRadar customer.

The bank ended up closing on a “significant XSIAM deployment” with Palo Alto Networks during the quarter, he said.

Arora made the comments as Palo Alto Networks disclosed the second quarter of financial results that includes the impacts of owning IBM’s QRadar SaaS assets.