BigTech consolidation does not look pretty in 2020. With Microsoft Teams able to use their enterprise network to out sell Slack, Slack has little choice but to explore a sale. Is Slack still worth $17 Billion? Salesforce’s stock was down on the rumor.
Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack Combination of #1 CRM platform with the most innovative enterprise communications platform will create the operating system for the new way to work, enabling companies to grow and succeed in the all-digital world. Picconvert.
Cloud computing giant Salesforce said it will acquire workplace messaging service Slack in a deal valued at $27.7 billion. Salesforce announced the deal on Tuesday, saying that under the terms of.
Salesforce just picked up Slack for a cool $27.7 billion based on the closing price of Salesforce’s common stock on November 30, 2020. It caught many off guard as the reasons for the big spend are still being digested. Combining Slack with Salesforce Customer 360 could be transformative for customers and the industry.
The acquisition would be Salesforce’s largest to date if a deal goes through. In a world of increasing wealth inequality, a lack of antitrust regulation is fueling a dangerous centralization of American BigTech and even the best startups cannot hold out for much longer. Clear ram on android phone.
The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the situation, reported on Wednesday that any deal would likely value Slack at more than its current market capitalization of $17 billion. It’s all very absurd but Slack was always going to be acquired by somebody.
It could have been Google, but Salesforce is on an acquisition binge. Google Cloud could have used Slack. As popular as Slack is among startups and smaller mid size companies, it is worth $36.95 per share as of the time of writing, valuing it at around $20.8 billion. That doesn’t really make much sense.
When Will Slack Deal Close
Following the publication of the WSJ’s report, shares of Slack rose more than 29%, now down to a 22% rise on the day. It’s just preliminary talks but is there really synergy between Slack’s audience and that of Salesforce? Probably, kinda?
Salesforce is a great company but its stock has not been as great this year as Microsoft or any of the other monopolies. How do you compete with a Cloud and enterprise giant as well diversified as Microsoft? You cannot really and that’s Slack’s problem in a nutshell. American technology companies are just those Big Five that have so much free cash and so much of a stranglehold on very big total addressable markets, American tech is like a dystopian corporate scenario.
Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook put on a good show that they are good corporate citizens. But they aren’t taxed properly, aren’t regulated properly and certainly aren’t good citizens towards American innovation. They suck up all the talent, while buying out the good startups. They talent-acquire AI companies and they basically do whatever they please.
Slack is just a small fish in a winner-takes-all version of Capitalism that America has unfortunately become. Silicon Valley’s death spiral, if you will. While restaurants, small businesses and retailers collapse during the pandemic, these GAMFA companies are thriving. It isn’t good business for the American ecosystem to have a “might is right rule” of the technology and business economy. Consolidation at this magnitude just means 80% of the world’s best new companies will be coming out of China now. And where will that leave North America in 20 years?
Salesforce is good for it. It acquired MuleSoft for $6.5 billion in 2018, the company’s biggest deal ever at the time, to help connect cloud applications. The following year it spent more than twice that amount on Tableau, acquiring the data visualization company for $15.3 billion. Slack would be one of the biggest software deals ever for the industry. That’s quite a shopping spree. It’s now or never for the future of Salesforce. The Cloud is not a place you want to be competing in against Amazon, Alibaba and Microsoft or Adobe, Google and company.
To survive you have to grow or be acquired and Slack was and is a great indie startup. But if it gets acquired it will be the end of an age. Slack grew up in a world where American tech startups could still exist. Slack was founded in 2009 in Vancouver. It’s a Canadian born startup. Perhaps the only Canadian born startup that won’t be acquired is Shopify. And maybe Lightspeed, though I wouldn’t hold out on that. What kind of a world are we creating?
Let’s just say what we are all too embarrassed to even admit. America is a bloated antitrust violation of all business norms of fair competition and free market capitalism. Just as America’s democratic system is in jeopardy of all semblance of social justice, it’s technological state has also gone astray. It’s a deeply mired problem of wealth inequality that will spiral the country to its downfall.
Cloud computing giant Salesforce said it will acquire workplace messaging service Slack in a deal valued at $27.7 billion.
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Salesforce announced the deal on Tuesday, saying that 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. The deal is subject to shareholder approval and expected to close in the second quarter of Salesforce's fiscal year 2022.
Salesforce shares slipped Wednesday, falling 10% in early trading as Slack slipped by about 3%.
The move comes as the pandemic has accelerated demand for remote work and workplace management software, and signals that some believe that workforce shifts could become permanent.
MORE: Salesforce announces layoffs after quarterly revenue tops $5 billion
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff called it 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,' Benioff said in a statement.
Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield added that 'the opportunity we see together is massive,' calling the deal 'the most strategic combination in the history of software.'
'As software plays a more and more critical role in the performance of every organization, we share a vision of reduced complexity, increased power and flexibility, and ultimately a greater degree of alignment and organizational agility,' Butterfield said.
Salesforce Acquire Slack
Saleforce said Slack will be 'deeply integrated into every Salesforce Cloud' and become the new interface for Salesforce Customer 360. When combined, 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,' according to the companies.
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Tech industry analysts speculate the deal is partly a way for Salesforce to compete with fellow cloud computing giant Microsoft, which owns its own suite of Teams workplace messaging software. Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, said in a memo that keeping pace with Microsoft was the 'core reason for this deal.'
Why Did Salesforce Buy Slack
Ives also noted that with more people working from home 'messaging platforms such as Zoom, Slack, and Teams have revolutionized the way that enterprises view collaboration software going forward.'
Even after a vaccine is readily available and employees begin returning to the office in 2021, Ives noted, this type of software will only become 'further embedded in enterprise initiatives.'