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Palo Alto (PANW), IBM Team Up to Provide AI-Powered Solutions

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Palo Alto Networks (PANW - Free Report) has collaborated with International Business Machines (IBM - Free Report) to improve its security platforms with the latter's artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in order to deliver AI-powered security solutions.

As part of this partnership, PANW is set to acquire IBM's QRadar SaaS assets to enhance its Cortex XSIAM platform. Meanwhile, International Business Machines will continue to support its existing on-prem QRadar clients.

Both companies are set to establish a joint Security Operations Center and a Cyber Range for customer training, with IBM Consulting becoming a preferred Managed Security Services Provider for PANW.

International Business Machines will use Palo Alto's security platforms internally and integrate watsonx AI into Cortex XSIAM for improved automation and customer support. The partnership will expand Prisma Cloud integrations with IBM's DevOps offerings, enhancing cloud-native security. The transaction portion of this announcement is likely to close by the end of September 2024, pending regulatory approval.

Since its launch, Cortex XSIAM has reduced the time for threat response through its AI-driven SOC platform. By leveraging infrastructure telemetry, threat intelligence and external attack surface data, the platform creates an intelligent data foundation for advanced security analytics and faster threat defense.

In November 2023, Palo Alto improved the functionality of this platform with XSIAM 2.0 and introduced new capabilities. The update helped security teams access a wide array of stored data. This upgrade also brought in unique features, such as fraud detection, security research and advanced data visualization. The platform also improved how alerts are detected, identified and prioritized. The new enhancement also introduced the MITRE ATT&CK Coverage Dashboard for better monitoring.

PANW's XSIAM platform is gaining momentum, reaching bookings of more than $90 million and signing the highest number of deals in second-quarter fiscal 2024. The new enhancement brought through the inclusion of IBM's QRadar SaaS assets to the platform is expected to help the company offer enhanced security capabilities and acquire new customers.

Zacks Rank and Other Stocks to Consider

Currently, Palo Alto carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), while IBM has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Shares of PANW and IBM have returned 63.1% and 36.2%, respectively, over the past year.

Some other top-ranked stocks from the broader technology sector are AppFolio (APPF - Free Report) and Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) , each sporting Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AppFolio’s 2024 earnings per share has been revised upward by 13 cents to $3.97 in the past 30 days. Shares of APPF have surged 78.7% in the past year.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Alphabet’s 2024 earnings per share has been revised upward by 80 cents to $7.57 in the past 30 days. Shares of GOOGL have jumped 44.3% in the past year.

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