Microsoft launched its Teams platform back in 2016 and has enjoyed a healthy rivalry with Slack, which even took out a full-page ad in the New York Times giving Microsoft tips on how to succeed in the team communication sphere. Slack’s slackingĭespite Slack’s popularity in the workforce, it has been at a major disadvantage compared to the deep-pocketed and expansive Microsoft, which has a huge ecosystem of products it can attach Teams to. Slack also recently launched Slack Connect, enabling up to 20 organizations to communicate in a single Slack channel, which could help Salesforce teams communicate with sales prospects and other external partners. According to Salesforce, Slack will become the “new interface for Salesforce Customer 360” and will be “deeply integrated into every Salesforce cloud,” becoming the core conduit through which people “communicate, collaborate, and take action on customer information.” With the Slack acquisition, Salesforce now has a direct path to social collaboration across the enterprise, allowing it to create deeper integrations for its array of products. In fact, Salesforce already offers integrations that allow users to share messages between Chatter and Slack, a possible indication that despite its clear market strength in certain areas, it still lags in others. Salesforce already has an enterprise-focused social platform called Chatter, but the largely sales-focused tool hasn’t really taken off.

Salesforce and Slack have a long-established relationship, thanks to product integrations over several years aimed at making it easier for enterprises to share data between the two platforms. The transaction is expected to close in Q2 of Salesforce’s fiscal year 2022, which falls in the second half of 2021, after which Slack will become an operating unit inside Salesforce, led by current Slack CEO and cofounder Stewart Butterfield.

Salesforce slack acquisition