Salesforce acquires workplace app Slack in a deal valued at $27.7 billion

Salesforce, a leading software giant, has announced the acquisition of workplace communications platform Slack in a cash-cum-stock deal valued at $27.7 billion, making it one of the largest technology deals of the year.

Salesforce Founder and CEO Marc Benioff described the coming together of two companies as “this is a match made in heaven.” This development is seen as another step taken by Salesforce to compete against Microsoft, especially in the area of enterprise communications platform.

“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,” Marc Benioff said in a statement.

The statement further said, the combination will create the operating system for the new way to work, uniquely enabling companies to grow and succeed in the all-digital world.

“Salesforce started the cloud revolution, and two decades later, we are still tapping into all the possibilities it offers to transform the way we work. The opportunity we see together is massive,” said Stewart Butterfield, CEO and Co-founder, Slack.

Upon the close of the transaction, Slack will become an operating unit of Salesforce and will continue to be led by CEO Stewart Butterfield.

According to Salesforce, there are many synergies from the acquisition of Slack. It said Slack will become the new interface for Salesforce Customer 360 platform.

This will also enable Slack to expand its presence in enterprise segment not just among Salesforce customers but also for any company that is undergoing digital transformation.

“Together, Salesforce and Slack will create the most extensive open ecosystem of apps and workflows for business and empower millions of developers to build the next generation of apps, with clicks not code,” it said.

According to a report in Bloomberg, the Salesforce ownership will mark a new era for Slack, a tech upstart with the lofty goal of trying to replace the need for business emails. The cloud-software giant may be able to sell Slack’s chatroom product to existing customers around the world, making it even more popular.

Slack said in March that it had reached 12.5 million users who were simultaneously connected on its platform, which has grown more essential while corporate employees work from home during the coronavirus pandemic, the Bloomberg report said.