Cisco wants to acquire log analytics company Splunk for $28 billion

Cisco has signed an agreement with log analytics company Splunk to acquire the latter for $28 billion. The security company says it wants to enable ‘the next generation of AI-based security and observability’.

Cisco wants to acquire Splunk for $157 per share, which amounts to a total amount of approximately $28 billion. This is according to Reuters the largest takeover deal that Cisco has ever concluded and makes it one of the largest software companies in the world.

In a joint press release the companies let us know that the acquisition should provide better AI-based cybersecurity software, so that companies can not only detect and remediate security threats, but also predict and prevent future threats in advance. Furthermore, the acquisition is said to enable observability in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. That is a term within devops that is used for debugging and monitoring software of live systems. No further information about the plans is provided.

Splunk provides software to collect, analyze and search large amounts of data, such as log files. Last quarter the company posted a loss of $63 million, said Forbes. The boards of directors of both companies have unanimously voted in favor of the acquisition, Cisco and Splunk said. The companies expect to complete the deal in the third quarter of 2024.

Update: 20.05: An earlier version of the article stated that Splunk was an AI analytics company. That’s not right, the company previously did not focus on AI. The article has been adjusted accordingly.