The biggest acquisition in Google’s history just cleared its final major hurdle.
Alphabet (GOOGL) has received unconditional EU antitrust approval for its $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity firm Wiz. In a rare swift decision for Big Tech M&A, regulators concluded that the deal does not harm competition, effectively giving Google a pass to bolster its arsenal against market leaders Amazon and Microsoft.
⚖️ THE REGULATORY LOGIC: The approval hinged on Google’s position as a distant third in the cloud race.
- The Quote: EU Antitrust Chief Teresa Ribera stated: “Google stands behind Amazon and Microsoft in terms of market shares in cloud infrastructure, and our assessment confirmed that customers will continue to have credible alternatives.”
- The Data: With AWS (~31%) and Azure (~24%) dominating, regulators view a stronger Google Cloud (~11%) as a pro-competitive force rather than a monopoly threat.
☁️ THE STRATEGIC PLAY: Google isn’t just buying revenue; it’s buying a “security layer” for the entire cloud ecosystem.
- The Asset: Wiz is a leader in Cloud Native Application Protection (CNAPP), known for its ability to secure workloads across any cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP).
- The Synergies: By integrating Wiz, Google can offer enterprise clients a “neutral” security control plane. This is critical for winning multi-cloud contracts, where large corporates refuse to be locked into a single vendor’s ecosystem.
💡 ANALYST TAKEAWAY: This is a defining moment for the Cloud Wars. The regulatory clearance suggests that antitrust bodies are currently more concerned with protecting competition (keeping Google viable against AWS/MSFT) than preventing consolidation. With Wiz, Google moves from selling “commodity compute” to selling “secure infrastructure”—a high-margin pivot necessary to justify the massive AI capex cycle.
👇 Cloud Leaders: Will Google keep Wiz “cloud-agnostic” to retain its value, or will they inevitably prioritize GCP integration?