In one of the most notable tech acquisitions of recent years, Salesforce will buy Slack for approximately $27.7 billion. It’s Salesforce’s biggest purchase ever, and a shot in the arm for Slack, which has been facing increasing competition from platforms like Microsoft Teams and Google Chat.
In the announcement post, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says:
“This is a match made in heaven. Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world. I’m thrilled to welcome Slack to the Salesforce Ohana once the transaction closes.”
Meanwhile, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield added:
“As software plays a more and more critical role in the performance of every organization, we share a vision of reduced complexity, increased power and flexibility, and ultimately a greater degree of alignment and organizational agility. Personally, I believe this is the most strategic combination in the history of software, and I can’t wait to get going.”
With people staying home during the coronavirus pandemic remote work and cloud tools like Slack and Salesforce have become increasingly important. The companies say that Slack will be “deeply integrated into every Salesforce Cloud” and become “the new interface for Salesforce Customer 360.”
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The move will likely help Slack further develop its presence in enterprise markets, an area in which Microsoft Teams had something of an advantage due to the company’s wealth of other products. And of course, Microsoft competes against Salesforce’s cloud business as well. Acquiring Slack allows Salesforce to build a more robust ecosystem of software tools to compel potential customers.
Once the transaction is closed, Slack will become an operating unit of Salesforce and will continue to be led by Butterfield. For more on the purchase, you can read the announcement post at the source link below.
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