“Slack’s platform already integrates with more than 2,400 apps and its ability to enable partners, professional developers, and even citizen developers using low-code and no-code approaches to build extensions and apps on its platform is well suited for the Salesforce strategy playbook.” “In major acquisitions such as MuleSoft, Tableau and now Slack, their communities and ecosystems were important factors in the Salesforce strategy,” he said. Previous acquisitions bear some similarity to the Slack buyout, said Jason Wong, VP analyst with Gartner’s App Design and Development team. Among these are data visualization tool Tableau ($15.3 billion) and integration platform MuleSoft ($6.5 billion), as well as the $750 million purchase of collaborative productivity app Quip in 2016.

The Slack acquisition adds to a sizeable list of large acquisitions by Salesforce. Its share price has also floundered, dropping by almost half compared to its IPO level, before rising sharply on talk of an acquisition last week. What’s more, Slack - which completed its direct listing last year - remains unprofitable, though losses reduced significantly year on year, according to second quarter results for the 2021 financial year. Slack’s growth this year has been perceived as lackluster in comparison, as others in the collaboration software market, especially Zoom, saw revenues soar as employees switched to work-from-home en masse. Teams, available at no extra cost to Office 365 subscribers, has 115 million daily active users, with adoption soaring during the pandemic and workforce lockdown that followed.

Acquired slack