Slack is a popular team messaging app that is especially well-liked among small companies and development teams. The company has embraced the start-up community with a big free offering and ease integration into other systems. Salesforce is a big tech behemoth with a vast array of technology offerings that are also popular, but often receive criticism due to the company’s habit of adding expensive licensing fees to them.
These two worlds will now be colliding as it has been revealed that Salesforce is acquiring Slack for an incredible $27.7 billion – an impressive amount for a company that is still relatively small in comparison and growing its user base:
Under the terms of the agreement, Slack shareholders will receive $26.79 in cash and 0.0776 shares of Salesforce common stock for each Slack share, representing an enterprise value of approximately $27.7 billion based on the closing price of Salesforce’s common stock on November 30, 2020,
Stewart and his team have built one of the most beloved platforms in enterprise software history, with an incredible ecosystem around it. This is a match made in heaven. Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world. I’m thrilled to welcome Slack to the Salesforce Ohana once the transaction closes
The two may seem like polar opposites in scale, but with Salesforce being one of the most prominent customer relationship management (CRM) systems, this acquisition allows them to make it easier for customers to perhaps connect directly with individual teams through the power of Slack.
The acquisition also provides the budget for Slack to grow at a more significant rate, and perhaps take on a bigger role in companies, much like Microsoft is doing with its Teams software.
Personal messaging apps have proven vital in a world transformed by remote working and it’s clearly a market that Salesforce wants to tap into further.
Last Updated: December 2, 2020
HvR
December 2, 2020 at 16:53
“much like Microsoft is doing with its Teams software”
Well precisely that. Slack was loosing against Teams due to M$ other position in the tech markets.
Salesforce only growing competitor in the CRM market is M$ with SAP and Oracle slowly loosing marketshare over the last 10 years.
Combine with that that both Slack and Salesforce sharing a similar tech stack in Amazon Chime and both having an “alliance” with Amazon with mutually beneficial client-custemor-client relationship.