By Byron V. Acohido
We’ve seen this movie before.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company’s, $32 billion bid for Wiz isn’t just about security and privacy. It’s the latest round in Big Tech’s long-running game of business leapfrog—where each giant keeps lunging into the next guy’s home turf, trying to reshape the battlefield in its favor.
Think about it. Google tried to unseat Microsoft Office with Google Apps. Microsoft struck back by challenging AWS’s dominance in cloud hosting. Google countered by taking a bite out of Apple’s iPhone empire with Android. Microsoft muscled into gaming with Xbox.
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Then there’s Apple disrupting personal computing with the iPad, forcing Microsoft to respond with Surface. Amazon upending Google’s ad empire, carving out a huge chunk of search-driven product ads. Facebook (now Meta) rewriting the ad game entirely, turning social media into a data powerhouse that forced Google to double down on YouTube.
And let’s not forget Tesla’s rise pushing Apple and Google deeper into automotive software, battling for dashboard dominance with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
Big Tech leapfrog anew
And now? The war has reached cloud security.
Microsoft has been building a fortress around its security offerings, folding Defender for Cloud into its cloud ecosystem and making CNAPP (Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms) the new must-have. Amazon, meanwhile, has been content to coast along with security add-ons like Guard Duty and Config, which—let’s be honest—aren’t nearly as comprehensive.
Google, feeling the pressure, just played its biggest card yet: buying one of the fastest-growing cybersecurity companies on the planet.
Forrester’s analysts call this Google’s push to finally offer a true multi-cloud security stack. Up to now, Google’s security tools have been solid—but mostly confined to GCP. That won’t fly in today’s multi-cloud world, where enterprises juggle workloads across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
Cser
“With this move, most current CNAPP capabilities in GCP—CSPM, CIEM, agentless CWP—will likely be replaced by Wiz’s offering and remain with multi-cloud support,” notes Andras Cser, VP and principal analyst at Forrester.
That’s the reassuring take. But let’s be real: We’ve seen plenty of Big Tech acquisitions start with promises of openness, only to quietly morph into walled gardens.
If Google follows that playbook, enterprises that rely on Wiz’s truly multi-cloud security may soon find themselves facing a dilemma: stick with Wiz under Google’s roof, or go hunting for a new neutral-party security provider—if one even exists.
Privacy & vendor lock-in
And then there’s the privacy angle.
Wiz scans security risks across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. Now that Google owns it, what happens to that data?
Will Wiz continue to play fair across all clouds, or will Google gradually steer it toward protecting its own backyard first?
We’ve seen Google do this before—bolstering its Cloud Armor security stack, reCaptcha Enterprise, and API security platform Apigee. All smart plays. But add Wiz to the mix, and suddenly Google isn’t just offering cloud security—it’s controlling a major piece of the intelligence on what’s happening inside its competitors’ infrastructure.
That’s exactly the kind of conflict of interest that makes enterprise CISOs nervous.
Mellen
“For security operations teams, Wiz Defend has been valuable because it is vendor-neutral, offering a unified detection and response tool that reduces alert fatigue,” says Forrester’s Allie Mellen. If Google pulls Wiz deeper into GCP-only territory, security teams that counted on Wiz for true cross-cloud insights could lose a critical advantage.
Will regulators step in?
Let’s not forget: Alphabet is already fending off antitrust scrutiny on multiple fronts. This deal just added fuel to the fire.
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic have spent the past decade trying (and mostly failing) to rein in Big Tech dominance. With Microsoft, Google, and Amazon now locking up pieces of the cloud security chessboard, regulators may have fresh ammunition to ask:
•Is this level of consolidation healthy for competition?
•Will multi-cloud security still be truly independent, or just another branch of hyperscaler control?
•Does Google now hold an unfair intelligence advantage over AWS and Microsoft?
One thing’s certain: AWS has to respond. Microsoft already has Defender for Cloud. Now Google has Wiz. That leaves AWS with a glaring gap in its security portfolio—one that could force Amazon to make a blockbuster security acquisition of its own.
This isn’t just about Google and Wiz. It’s about who controls the future of securing the cloud.
Never ending cloud wars
Google’s bet on Wiz is a defining moment. If it stays true to multi-cloud security, enterprises win. If it tilts Wiz’s advantages toward Google Cloud, trust erodes—and businesses will be forced to rethink their security stacks.
And let’s be clear: This won’t be the last leapfrog move. Microsoft, AWS, and Google are locked in a never-ending war for cloud dominance—and cybersecurity is now a key battleground.
The only question is: Who makes the next move? I’ll keep watch and keep reporting.
Acohido
Pulitzer Prize-winning business journalist Byron V. Acohido is dedicated to fostering public awareness about how to make the Internet as private and secure as it ought to be.
