'This deal will be a major shot across the bow at Microsoft,' wrote Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, in a report on Monday. The acquisition will further intensify Salesforce's rivalry with Microsoft, whose Teams chat and video service has emerged as Slack's stiffest competitor. 'As you know, they're basically entering from the $1 billion to $2 billion phase, which I know extremely well, and this is a moment where we can offer a lot of value. We've been there. We've lived that life.'

On the company's earnings call Tuesday, Benioff said that Salesforce believed it could help Slack reach the next critical stage of revenue growth. 31, to $876.3 million, according to analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. Slack is projected to grow 39% this fiscal year, which ends Jan. But the forecast for the full year of 21% to 22% growth would represent the company's slowest rate of expansion since 2010. Salesforce's annualized revenue topped $20 billion in the fiscal second quarter, with growth of 29%. Salesforce, which got its start by developing cloud-based software for sales reps, has dramatically expanded its reach in recent years and, along the way, become one of the most valuable software companies in the world, passing Oracle, SAP and IBM as well as other legacy tech companies such as Cisco and Intel. The deal values Slack at over 24 times estimated revenue for next year. Salesforce said the Slack purchase comes to an enterprise value of $27.7 billion, which takes into account shares outstanding along with debt and cash. The company spent $15.3 billion on data visualization company Tableau in 2019 and, a year earlier, shelled out $6.5 billion to acquire MuleSoft, whose back-end software connects data stored in disparate places. Last year, the London Stock Exchange agreed to buy data provider Refinitiv for $27 billion, though the deal has yet to be cleared by European regulators.įor Salesforce, the Slack deal is the latest in CEO Marc Benioff's multiyear acquisition spree. The biggest was IBM's $34 billion purchase of Red Hat in 2018, followed by Microsoft's $27 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016.

The purchase marks one of the largest ever for the software industry. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lower

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