The company will still keep its name and operations, and CEO Stewart Butterfield will continue to lead Slack as an operating unit within Salesforce. The integration of Slack into Salesforce does not mean a total sell-out on Slack’s side.

Hence, the rivalry between the two companies has become evident. However, Slack was the first company to successfully materialise such an idea, and saw many of its core elements later implemented by Microsoft Teams. What Slack is, is nothing out of the ordinary for SCL Student Bytes readers, as all of us have become all too familiar with such tools due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was designed to work with other workplace tools such as GoogleDocs and Trello, making it a desirable app for those looking to expand their options in such tools. Users also have the ability to make public or private chat groups for teams and departments, as well as message other users individually. Eventually, the company grew into an alternative to e-mail, with an emphasis on instant messaging between users. This caused the company to shut down its gaming operations and focus on its chatting functions. Its online game, Glitch, however, was a failure. Slack was initially founded in 2009 as an online gaming company called Tiny Speck. Salesforce entering into the picture, however, means that big tech will reign over the industry, acquiring independent businesses left and right and potentially defying competition laws.

With the recent lockdown procedures implemented all around the globe due to the pandemic, and many businesses going remote, the competition between Slack and Teams has intensified.

The deal comes as a big competitive move against Microsoft, whose Teams has been Slack’s biggest rival. The enterprise behemoth declared that it will buy the company in cash and stock for almost 28 billion dollars (27.7 dollars to be exact). Salesforce’s announcement of its acquisition of Slack this past month, its largest acquisition in its 21 year history, has become a hot-topic for the remote-work industry.

Salesforce acquisition of slack