Salesforce is acquiring workplace chat app Slack for $27.7 billion

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Cloud computing giant Salesforce is acquiring workplace chat app Slack, the two companies announced on Tuesday. The deal, rumblings of which began surfacing last week, marks one of the most consequential acquisitions in the business software industries in recent years and Salesforce’s biggest purchase ever.

Slack has transformed from a fast-rising startup formed as a gaming company in 2009 into a major competitor of Microsoft with more than 12 million daily active users and a market value of close to $25 billion. The company, led by Flickr co-creator Stewart Butterfield, started primarily as an email alternative that pitched itself to startups, media companies, and other tech-savvy businesses to better manage interoffice communication.

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