The News: Kyndryl Announces Strategic Global Alliance with Palo Alto Networks to Provide Industry Leading Network and Cybersecurity Services. Read the full press release on the Kyndryl website.

Kyndryl Announces Strategic Global Alliance with Palo Alto Networks

Analyst Take: Since Kyndryl split from IBM almost 18 months ago, Stephen Leonard, who leads alliances and the Kyndryl ecosystem, has been on a mission to forge relationships with as many of the top-tier technology vendors as possible. The rationale for this mission is simple—Kyndryl is no longer forced to promote IBM offerings and needs to establish itself as a completely independent global technology services provider. The Futurum team has covered many of these alliance announcements, and the recent announcements resonate in the context of those other alliances.

Kyndryl and Palo Alto Networks have announced a global alliance aimed at providing comprehensive network and cybersecurity solutions. This alliance should be observed within the context of several salient industry trends and demands that are shaping the future of technology services, notably digital transformation, enterprise mobility, network modernization, and cybersecurity. Key components of the alliance include:

End-to-End Service Offering: The alliance unites Palo Alto Networks’ robust platform security capabilities with Kyndryl’s advanced network security services. This synergy offers customers an integrated solution that spans the breadth of design, implementation, management, and modernization of mission-critical networking across a range of industries.
SD-WAN Service Offering: Kyndryl will roll out a new SD-WAN service powered by Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma SD-WAN. This service aims to accommodate the accelerating demands of enterprise mobility, a burgeoning number of devices, and cloud-based application access.
Joint Innovation Lab: The lab, slated for completion by the end of 2023, will demonstrate industrial 5G and edge use cases. This lab promises to extend the practical applications of the alliance’s solutions into rapidly evolving areas such as Industry 4.0.
Security operations as a platform (SOaap): Kyndryl had previously launched this solution leveraging Palo Alto Networks’ Cortex technology. This platform underscores the depth of their ongoing collaboration and augments their combined service portfolio with automation and orchestration capabilities.

Implications on the Technology Services Landscape

The alliance between Kyndryl and Palo Alto Networks can be contextualized as a strategic move aimed at capturing multiple intersecting opportunities in the evolving technology landscape. Poised to benefit from an SD-WAN infrastructure market growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.1% through 2027, according to IDC, the partnership anticipates the organizational shift from hardware-centric to OPEX consumption models, offering the requisite operational agility for digital transformation initiatives. Moreover, the alliance’s integrated approach to networking and cybersecurity responds to a changing threat landscape and potentially sets a new standard for enterprise security and compliance. This collaboration also distinguishes itself by extending into industrial applications, specifically targeting edge and 5G technologies to catalyze innovation and competition in emerging sectors. Lastly, the partnership could act as a catalyst for further industry consolidation, steering enterprises toward choosing comprehensive, integrated solutions over piecemeal, vendor-specific offerings.

Looking Ahead

The alliance between Kyndryl and Palo Alto Networks is a calculated step to meet emerging customer needs in a rapidly evolving landscape and is consistent with Kyndryl’s moves to partner with industry-leading providers. The alliance’s comprehensive scope in networking and cybersecurity services bolstered by a joint lab should translate to benefits for Kyndryl’s 4,000+ customers going forward.

This partnership not only addresses immediate operational needs such as digital transformation and enterprise mobility but also looks forward to emerging technologies in the realms of industrial 5G and edge computing. Moreover, by offering integrated, end-to-end solutions, the alliance has the potential to redefine industry standards for enterprise security and compliance, while encouraging further industry consolidation toward comprehensive service offerings over fragmented, vendor-specific solutions.

Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.

Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.