Salesforce Completes $ 27.7 Billion Slack Acquisition

Cloud computing giant Salesforce has completed the acquisition of Slack, a $ 27.7 billion deal that adds the messaging app to its business software suite without immediately changing functionality, branding or Slack’s leadership.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in a statement that “Together we will define the future of enterprise software, creating the digital headquarters that enables every organization to ensure the success of customers and employees alike. anywhere.

While Slack hasn’t quite killed email, it has caught the attention of giants like Microsoft, the company that Slack co-founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield called “unhealthily concerned about us. kill ”in a conversation with The edge Last year.

“In a different world where Slack is incredibly successful over the next two years and 98% of knowledge workers use Slack, it matters to Microsoft as the relative importance of email is drastically reduced,” Butterfield said.

Now Slack is moving from an upstart independent challenger to a consolidated competitor on an equal footing. As Box CEO Aaron Levie told Casey Newton after the deal was announced, “Microsoft’s only benefit is distribution, and now they’ve neutralized the advantage… they can actually. keep the ultimate promise of opportunity as they have 10 times the number of salespeople who can distribute this thing in businesses all over the world.

Salesforce has called its employees architects a user-friendly remote approach, and with Slack in its pocket, it will try to dominate as other companies move in that direction. To answer the question about what to do next, on August 17, Butterfield and Salesforce COO Bret Taylor are planning an event “to learn more about how the two companies are creating a powerful platform for the digital world and work anywhere ”.