US Salesforce Enters Corporate Messenger Market... Sets Stage for Showdown with MS

Slack acquired for 19 trillion won... Merger announcement expected as early as next week

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Salesforce, a U.S.-based cloud customer management software service provider, has announced a seismic shift in the industry by moving to acquire the enterprise messenger program company Slack Technologies. If Salesforce succeeds in acquiring Slack, it will include internal messengers in its own software, intensifying competition in the enterprise software market against companies like Microsoft (MS).

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 25th (local time), Salesforce is conducting preliminary negotiations for the acquisition of Slack. The merger is expected to be finalized as early as next week, with the acquisition price expected to exceed $17 billion (approximately 19 trillion KRW).

Slack is an enterprise messenger software company used by 12 million people worldwide as a work messenger, known for its strong document sharing features for task execution. Its major clients include NASA, the UK government, and Samsung C&T.

Salesforce, which holds a dominant number one position in the enterprise customer management software (CRM) market, has shown interest in acquiring Slack because combining enterprise messengers would allow it to provide integrated services in work areas such as data analysis using artificial intelligence and employee management. The enterprise integrated service market, known as Software as a Service (SaaS), is considered a "new growth engine" by software companies and is being aggressively driven. Grand View Research forecasts that CRM in the SaaS market will grow at an average annual rate of 14% from 2020 to 2027. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, has revealed a blueprint to expand Salesforce’s services further and become a comprehensive software provider.

If Salesforce succeeds in acquiring Slack, competition with MS is expected to intensify. MS also owns the enterprise messenger MS Teams, which has 115 million users worldwide. MS is aggressively marketing by emphasizing integration with Office and offering the service for free. Slack openly names MS as its top competitor. MS also actively pursued acquiring Slack for some time.

Salesforce is also unlikely to let go of Slack as it seeks to avenge its defeat to MS in the acquisition battle for the job search social networking service (SNS) platform LinkedIn.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.