In one of the most notable tech acquisitions in recent years, Salesforce will buy Slack for about $27,7 billionmillions dollars.
It's Salesforce's biggest purchase ever, but also a breather for Slack, which faces growing competition from platforms like Microsoft Teams and Google Chat.
In the announcement, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff states:
“Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the digital, working world. I'm excited to welcome Slack to Salesforce Ohana once the cochange. "
Meanwhile, Slack's CEO Stewart Butterfield added:
"As software plays an increasingly critical role in the performance of any organization, we share a vision for reduced complexity, increased power and flexibility, and ultimately a greater degree of alignment and organizational flexibility. Personally, I think this is the most strategic combination in the history of software and I can't wait to get started. "
With people staying at home during remote work due to the pandemic tools cloud services such as Slack and Salesforce have become increasingly important. The companies say Slack will be "deeply integrated into every Salesforce Cloud" and become "the new interface for Salesforce Customer 360."
The move is likely to help Slack further expand its presence in the corporate markets, an area where Microsoft Teams has had the edge over the wealth of the company's other products. Acquisition of Slack allows Salesforce to build a more powerful software tool ecosystem and gain new customers.
Once the transaction is completed, Slack will become a Salesforce operating unit that will continue to be led by Butterfield. For more on the market, you can read it official announcement.
