Slack’s own video collaboration tool has proven much less popular. Slack also fell behind Zoom, the pandemic’s breakout tech star. rival with the European Commission earlier this year. Slack filed an antitrust complaint against the Redmond, Wash. Taylor echoed Benioff’s enthusiasm on the call, describing Slack as “an operating system for the new way to work.” In a statement, Butterfield echoed the laudatory praises, saying the deal represented “the most strategic combination in the history of software.”ĭespite the coronavirus pandemic boosting remote work, Slack struggled in the face of competition from Microsoft, which bundles its similar Teams software with its bevy of Office 365 offerings. “It’s a perfect match for us both,” Benioff said, calling the combo a business “supercharger.” Collaboration tools involving chat and video “are the next big moment for our industry,” Benioff added, comparing the occasion to the development of graphical user interfaces, or icon-laden computer screens, in an earlier computing era. Their plan: to combine Slack with Salesforce’s Customer 360 product, a central hub for Salesforce’s software services, ranging from sales to marketing, he said. The runner-up would be Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn for more than $26 billion in 2016.īenioff said Salesforce’s president, Bret Taylor, and Slack’s CEO, Stewart Butterfield, approached him with the idea for a deal. In the software industry, Salesforce’s Slack acquisition is exceeded only by IBM’s mega-purchase of cloud caretaker Red Hat for $34 billion in 2018. It’s the central nervous system of so many companies on this call,” he said.

“We see Slack as a once-in-a-generation platform and company. Marc Benioff, Salesforce’s CEO and chairman, described his own dependence on Slack’s instant messaging service for the office during an earnings call after market close on Tuesday. The company has steadily expanded into new areas, including marketing services and data analytics. The deal is the largest acquisition ever by Salesforce, whose core product helps sales teams manage their customers. Salesforce agreed on Tuesday to buy Slack for $27.7 billion, combining two powerhouses in business software.

Slack acquisition price