MarketWatch: Salesforce’s deal for Slack creates a bigger threat to Microsoft
With a $27.7 billion deal to buy Slack Technologies Inc. — its biggest acquisition yet — Salesforce.com Inc. is poised to become an even bigger threat to Microsoft Corp. in the world of corporate software. But it could be its toughest merger yet.
As expected after reports emerged last week, Salesforce CRM, -0.41% on Tuesday said it reached an agreement to buy Slack Technologies Inc. WORK, -0.51% for $27.7 billion in cash and stock. Slack, which went public in 2019, is known for its corporate-focused instant-messaging system. The deal is expected to close in Salesforce’s second quarter of fiscal 2022, which is next July.
The deal will give Salesforce its biggest competitor yet to Microsoft, which offers the competing Teams messaging service. Salesforce said that combining its Customer360 platform with Slack will be “transformative for customers and the industry.
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“This merger between Salesforce and Slack, like that between book publishers Simon & Schuster and Bertelsmann, is fundamentally defensive, a result of a refusal of antitrust enforcers to enforce the law,” Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project in Washington, said in a statement. “Slack is trying to find a way to defend itself from Microsoft’s underpricing and bundling of its Teams product.”