SAN FRANCISCO, July 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce
(NYSE: CRM), the global leader in CRM, today announced it has
completed its acquisition of Slack Technologies, Inc.
"We couldn't be more excited to have Slack as part of the
Salesforce family, combining the #1 CRM and the trailblazing
digital platform for the work anywhere world," said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce.
"Together we'll define the future of enterprise software, creating
the digital HQ that enables every organization to deliver customer
and employee success from anywhere."
"We've learned over the past year that the workplace isn't
snapping back to the way it was," said Bret
Taylor, President and Chief Operating Officer of Salesforce.
"Together, Slack and Salesforce Customer 360 will give every
company in the world a single source of truth for their business
and a single platform for connecting employees, customers, and
partners with each other and the apps they use every day."
"We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink and
reshape how and where we work," said Stewart Butterfield, Slack CEO and Co-Founder.
"Salesforce and Slack are uniquely positioned to lead this historic
shift to a digital-first world. I could not be more excited for
what's to come."
"We are obsessed with continually delighting our clients, and
offering them the best experience and value across every
interaction," said Arvind Krishna,
Chairman and CEO of IBM. "Salesforce and Slack coming together will
help us become more connected, more productive, and more innovative
so we can better serve our clients."
Acquisition to Create the Digital HQ for Success from
Anywhere
Companies around the world have learned one thing over the past
year—if you don't have a digital way to connect with your
employees, customers, and partners, you don't have much of a chance
of surviving.
Headquarters are no longer on Madison Avenue or Main Street—they
are in the cloud. Every business—in every industry—has to optimize
for a digital-first customer, employee, and partner experience.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink and
reshape everything about how and where we work. That's exactly what
the combination of Salesforce and Slack is all about—creating the
business operating system for the new world of work.
With the world's #1 CRM, companies can sell, service, market,
conduct commerce, and more from anywhere. Slack has transformed the
way we work with its trailblazing
digital platform for business communication, which is used by
millions of people around the world and enables entire
organizations to work far more efficiently and effortlessly.
Together, Salesforce and Slack will deliver the Slack-first
Customer 360 that gives companies a single source of truth for
their business, and a single platform for connecting employees,
customers, and partners with each other and the apps they use every
day, all within their existing workflows.
The combination of Salesforce and Slack also brings together two
of the software industry's most dynamic communities, creating an
open and extensive ecosystem that will deliver the next generation
of digital-first apps and workflows for business.
"Salesforce will create a modern workspace that enables
collaboration, communities, communications, CRM functionality,
customer experience, and AI in an ecosystem that will welcome other
integrations to extend enterprise functionality," said Wayne Kurtzman, IDC Research Director for
Social, Communities, and Collaboration.
Salesforce and Slack are already making a huge difference. IBM's
380,000 employees are working together in Slack, with numerous
workflows across Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud powering
customer success across locations and time zones.
As part of Salesforce, Slack will be positioned to accelerate
and extend its mission to make work life simpler, more pleasant,
and more productive. Slack will continue to operate under the Slack
brand, driving forward a continued focus on its mission, customers,
and community. Slack will continue to be led by CEO and Co-Founder
Stewart Butterfield.
On Tuesday, August 17,
10:00 a.m. PT/1:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m.
BST, Salesforce President and COO Bret Taylor and Slack CEO and Co-Founder
Stewart Butterfield will host an
event to share more about how the two companies are creating a
powerful platform for the digital-first, work anywhere world. You
can tune into the event here.
About Salesforce
Salesforce, the global CRM leader,
empowers companies of every size and industry to digitally
transform and create a 360° view of their customers. For more
information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit:
www.salesforce.com.
This communication contains forward-looking information related
to Salesforce, Slack and the acquisition of Slack by Salesforce
that involves substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause
actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied
by such statements. Forward-looking statements relate to, among
other things, future events and anticipated results of operations,
business strategies, the anticipated benefits of the transaction,
the anticipated impact of the transaction on the combined company's
business and financial and operating results, the expected amount
and timing of synergies from the transaction, and other aspects of
Salesforce's operations or operating results. Risks and
uncertainties include, but are not limited to: the impact of public
health crises, such as pandemics (including coronavirus (COVID-19))
and epidemics and any related company or government policies and
actions to protect the health and safety of individuals or
government policies or actions to maintain the functioning of
national or global economies and markets; the effect of the
transaction on the ability of Salesforce or Slack to retain and
hire key personnel and maintain relationships with customers,
suppliers and others with whom Salesforce or Slack do business, or
on Salesforce's or Slack's operating results and business
generally; Salesforce's ability to successfully integrate Slack's
operations and realize expected synergies; the impact of, and
actions Salesforce may take in response to, the COVID-19 pandemic,
related public health measures and resulting economic downturn and
market volatility; Salesforce's ability to maintain security levels
and service performance meeting the expectations of its customers,
and the resources and costs required to avoid unanticipated
downtime and prevent, detect and remediate performance degradation
and security breaches; the expenses associated with Salesforce's
data centers and third-party infrastructure providers; Salesforce's
ability to secure additional data center capacity; Salesforce's
reliance on third-party hardware, software and platform providers;
the effect of evolving domestic and foreign government regulations,
including those related to the provision of services on the
Internet, those related to accessing the Internet, and those
addressing data privacy, cross-border data transfers and import and
export controls; current and potential litigation involving
Salesforce or its industry, including litigation involving acquired
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developments and regulatory investigations involving Salesforce or
affecting its industry; Salesforce's ability to successfully
introduce new services and product features, including any efforts
to expand its services; the success of Salesforce's strategy of
acquiring or making investments in complementary businesses, joint
ventures, services, technologies and intellectual property rights;
Salesforce's ability to complete, on a timely basis or at all,
announced transactions; Salesforce's ability to realize the
benefits from acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures
and investments; Salesforce's ability to successfully integrate
acquired businesses and technologies; Salesforce's ability to
compete in the market in which it participates; the success of
Salesforce's business strategy and its plan to build its business,
including its strategy to be a leading provider of enterprise cloud
computing applications and platforms; Salesforce's ability to
execute its business plans; Salesforce's ability to continue to
grow unearned revenue and remaining performance obligation; the
pace of change and innovation in enterprise cloud computing
services; the seasonal nature of Salesforce's sales cycles;
Salesforce's ability to limit customer attrition and costs related
to those efforts; the success of Salesforce's international
expansion strategy; the demands on Salesforce's personnel and
infrastructure resulting from significant growth in its customer
base and operations, including as a result of acquisitions;
Salesforce's ability to preserve its workplace culture, including
as a result of its decisions regarding its current and future
office environments or work-from-home policies; Salesforce's
dependency on the development and maintenance of the infrastructure
of the Internet; Salesforce's real estate and office facilities
strategy and related costs and uncertainties; fluctuations in, and
its ability to predict, its operating results and cash flows; the
variability in Salesforce's results arising from the accounting for
term license revenue products; the performance and fair value of
Salesforce's investments in complementary businesses through its
strategic investment portfolio; the impact of future gains or
losses from Salesforce's strategic investment portfolio, including
gains or losses from overall market conditions that may affect the
publicly traded companies within its strategic investment
portfolio; Salesforce's ability to protect its intellectual
property rights; Salesforce's ability to develop its brands; the
impact of foreign currency exchange rate and interest rate
fluctuations on its results; the valuation of its deferred tax
assets and the release of related valuation allowances; the
potential availability of additional tax assets in the future; the
impact of new accounting pronouncements and tax laws; uncertainties
affecting Salesforce's ability to estimate its tax rate;
uncertainties regarding Salesforce's tax obligations in connection
with potential jurisdictional transfers of intellectual property,
including the tax rate, the timing of the transfer and the value of
such transferred intellectual property; uncertainties regarding the
effect of general economic and market conditions; the impact of
geopolitical events; uncertainties regarding the impact of
expensing stock options and other equity awards; the sufficiency of
Salesforce's capital resources; Salesforce's ability to comply with
its debt covenants and lease obligations; and the impact of climate
change, natural disasters and actual or threatened public health
emergencies, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Further information on these and other risks and uncertainties
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Financials heading of the Investor Relations section of
Salesforce's website at www.salesforce.com/investor. The
forward-looking statements included in this communication are made
only as of the date hereof. Salesforce undertakes no obligation to
update any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events
or circumstances, except as required by law.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other
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Salesforce applications should make their purchase decisions based
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with offices in Europe and
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SOURCE Salesforce