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Salesforce Considering Slack Buy

By  |  November 25, 2020

Salesforce held talks to buy the workplace messaging app Slack, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

There is no guarantee that the preliminary talks will lead to an acquisition, according to the report, but a deal would signal the cloud giant’s more aggressive foray into office communication. Currently, Salesforce has two communication and collaboration tools, Chatter and Quip, which can be used in tandem with its customer management-focused tools.

The move would represent Salesforce’s largest acquisition in its history, as Slack’s market capitalization was at about US$17 billion prior to the report, and the acquisition price would likely be higher. Slack’s stock surged as much as 32% on the news while Salesforce shares were down about 3.5%. Neither company was immediately available for comment.

This would also continue Salesforce’s acquisition spree of late. The customer management software provider has made two large acquisitions in the last few years: it bought data visualization company Tableau for over US$15 billion in 2019 and MuleSoft for US$6.5 billion in 2018.