Salesforce scoops up team chat pioneer Slack for $27.7B Software
2020-12-07
Salesforce has acquired collaboration software vendor Slack in a deal worth $27.7 billion.
The acquisition — details of which leaked last week — will see Slack business chat application integrated with Salesforce cloud tools, serving as the new interface for its Customer 360 product portfolio.
“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," said Salesforce chair and CEO Marc Benioff said in a statement. The acquisition was unveiled after the close of financial markets in the US on Tuesday afternoon.
"The opportunity we see together is massive,” said Slack CEO and Co-Founder Stewart Butterfield. “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.... Personally, I believe this is the most strategic combination in the history of software, and I can not wait to get going.”
For Slack, the deal will mean access to more large-enterprise customers and greater clout as it competes with key rival Microsoft.
“On the plus side, Slack gets an investor who can build out the service into what it may need to compete with Microsoft and Google,” said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.
To truly compete with collaboration software suite vendors like Microsoft and Google, said Moorhead, Salesforce will need to further bolster its proposition around video and personal productivity.