Slack has clearly been one of the standout software companies during the pandemic. In an interview with CNBC this morning, AWS CEO Andy Jassy called them “very important, significant long-term strategic partners,” and said Amazon “will look to build products alongside them to continue to grow the business for both of us.” The deal combines two allies of Amazon Web Services, which provides the underlying infrastructure for the Slack and Salesforce video features through its AWS Chime technology, and partners with Salesforce to sell its customer service software. “If Salesforce wants to expand beyond its core gold mine of sales and marketing departments and further into the enterprise, this was the moment and thus represents a major shot across the bow against Microsoft.” “Microsoft with its Azure/Office 365 cloud stack and Teams enterprise messaging solution set has dominated the cloud over the past few years and accelerated its growth during this COVID backdrop,” Ives wrote in a note to clients. It was a “now or never” deal for Benioff, said Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives. This move fundamentally re-orders the enterprise software landscape, giving Slack a new level of scale and creating all new opportunities across the entire ecosystem. Analysts say the complementary strengths of Salesforce and Slack, in cloud-based customer relationship management and workplace messaging, respectively, promise to create a formidable new competitor for Microsoft in enterprise technology.īox CEO Aaron Levie, who grew up near Microsoft in Mercer Island, Wash., wrote on Twitter that the deal “fundamentally re-orders the enterprise software landscape, giving Slack a new level of scale and creating all new opportunities across the entire ecosystem.”īoom! Slack + Salesforce is huge.

Microsoft went unmentioned, of course, but it’s the biggest target. I was told that people on the internet may have opinions, so thought I’d offer mine… “The opportunity we see together is massive,” added Butterfield, the Slack CEO.ĭespite feeling like I had a decade’s worth of CEOing in the last 18 months, today’s news inspires a lot of excitement about the decade to come.

Slack acquisition price