Right about now, Salesforce chief Marc Benioff must be wondering what he got himself into with his $27.7 billion purchase of Slack. Microsoft’s decision to incorporate its Slack competitor Teams with its new Windows 11 operating system—unveiled today—guarantees that Teams will be an even bigger potential competitor to Slack. And that means the value of what Salesforce is buying may have diminished by the time the deal closes.
Sure, Benioff presumably expected Microsoft to go down this road, given that the software giant already has incorporated Teams into Office. That move prompted a complaint from Slack to the European Commission, alleging Microsoft was acting illegally and in an anti-competitive manner. Clearly that complaint hasn’t had Microsoft shaking in its boots. And to be fair, this isn’t like Apple preventing people from using outside app stores on their iPhones: Microsoft doesn’t stop anyone from downloading Slack or other tools for use on Windows.
