Slack could benefit from new access to corporate clients and gain additional sales and marketing power, in case reports of your imminent acquisition by Salesforce materialize.
This combination promises to address one of Slack's biggest relative weaknesses in its competition with its biggest rival, Microsoft Teams.
Redmond's business collaboration technology benefits from Microsoft's existing relationships with large companies and organizations using Windows, Azure, Office, and Dynamics, so much so that Slack alleges Microsoft is unfairly exploiting its market position to give Teams an advantage. undue.
In fact, last July, Slack announced that it had filed a complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission for anti-competitive practices. In a press release, the messenger assures that his complaint provides details about Microsoft's illegal and anti-competitive practices of abusing its dominant position in the market to extinguish competition in violation of European Union competition law. C
It rites Microsoft for leveraging its strong position in the professional segment to impose its rival service teams and crush all competition. In particular, it indicates that Microsoft illegally linked its Teams product to its market-dominant Office productivity suite, forcing it to be installed with millions of users. blocking their removal and hiding the real cost to corporate clients. After examining the complaint, the European Union will decide whether or not to open an investigation into Microsoft's practices.
"We believe we are winning on the merits of our product, but we cannot ignore illegal behavior that denies customers access to the tools and solutions they want," said Jonathan Prince, vice president of communications and policy at Slack. “Slack threatens Microsoft's control over business email, the cornerstone of Office, which means that Slack threatens Microsoft's lockdown on business software. «
An agreement between Slack and Salesforce also amplifies the rivalry long standing between Salesforce and Microsoft in the broader cloud and business applications market.
The combination of the two companies based in San Francisco it would be "a great crush on Microsoft"
“For Microsoft, this would change the landscape competitively and make Salesforce a competitor to watch (Dynamics vs. CRM) in the field, as these two pillars will compete more on the trillion-dollar opportunities that the cloud provides during the next decade. «
An agreement between Salesforce and Slack could be announced in a matter of days, CNBC reported, citing sources who said the acquisition would put Slack above its current price. Slack's market value was $ 24 billion Monday morning, down from $ 17 billion when the Wall Street Journal first reported on the talks last week.
Therefore, the deal would involve two fierce Microsoft rivals.
In May, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield said Microsoft Teams was not a competitor to Slack. In an interview, Butterfield revealed that within its structure, the company believes that "Microsoft may have the unhealthy concern of trying to kill us, and Teams is the vehicle to do so."
Butterfield andHe explained why he thinks Microsoft is "unhealthily preoccupied" with Slack and compares Teams more to a competitor than Zoom.
Slack obviously has its own voice and video calling features, but that's not the main focus of the app, and businesses often integrate Cisco's Zoom or WebEx. Microsoft has moved businesses from Skype for Business to Teams, which traditionally focused on voice and video calls.
In the end, Butterfield thinks Microsoft is trying to force comparison with Teams because “Microsoft is benefiting from the narrative that Teams and Slack compete. Although the reality is that it is mainly a voice and video call service ”.