Salesforce buys Slack

Salesforce buys Slack to expand its cloud footprint

by | Dec 3, 2020 | News, UC & C

The Slack buy will enable Salesforce to compete head-to-head with Microsoft, the enterprise communication industry leader.
Share to lead the transformation

Enterprise software major Salesforce announced today that it is acquiring workplace chatting app Slack in a massive $27.7 billion cash and stock deal. As part of the agreement, Slack shareholders will receive $26.79 in cash and 0.0776 shares of Salesforce common stock against each Slack share. Salesforce is buying Slack to meet the new digital transformation demands of enterprises.

For unversed, Slack is the workplace collaboration software used by organizations as an email alternative. By far, this acquisition is the largest in Salesforce’s two-decades-long history, exceeding its Tableau software purchase, which was estimated at $15.7 billion. Once the transaction is complete, Slack will become an operational unit of Salesforce and continue to be run by the CEO Stewart Butterfield, popularly known as Flickr co-founder.

As Covid-19 cases surge, businesses are re-architecting how they are working and communicating with customers, users, and employees. For organizations, collaborative tools and solutions have become essential in ensuring business continuity and providing an exceptional experience for a growing distributed workforce. That’s what sparked Salesforce’s attention for Slack. (See: How is digital transformation shaping the new future?)

For Salesforce, the most exciting aspect of the purchase is to link its Customer 360 tool with Slack Connect. Salesforce Customer 360 tool enables businesses to connect Salesforce apps and create a unified customer ID to get a complete overview of the customer.

Slack currently has over 70,000 paying customers that are using Slack Connect.

Transformative approach

Slack was first designed for internal office communication. It then became one of the most popular messaging and collaborative tools for virtual meetings, focusing on making it easy for employees to get essential information at a glance. Today, it offers easy instant messaging, rapid file sharing, and integrations with many top-notch services.

Slack’s technology engine allows developers to add the Slack API to their existing ecosystem or merge with various other tools through integration. The most significant advantage Slack boasts about today is its ability to integrate more than 2,400 diverse apps that people use to work together and connect.

With the acquisition, through its cloud-based platform, Salesforce aims to create and provide workspace apps to connect customers in a whole new way. The CRM major is hugely optimistic that the amalgamation will create the broadest open ecosystem of apps and workflows for organizations and allow millions of developers to develop the next generation of apps, using clicks instead of code.

Marc Benioff, Chief Executive Officer of Salesforce, seems to be so thrilled about the deal that he has declared the acquisition as a match made in paradise. “This is a match made in heaven. Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape enterprise software’s future and transform how everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world. I’m thrilled to welcome Slack to the Salesforce Ohana once the transaction closes,” Benioff said in a press release.

Face to face with Microsoft

In 2021, cloud technology will continue to play a pivotal role in driving business for most organizations. The focus will be on integrating new technologies and analytics to link people and data across systems, applications, and devices. Salesforce is preparing to address these needs faced by commercial enterprises in today’s digital universe and maintain pace with its rival Microsoft. (See: Technology trends for businesses in 2020)

Slack’s buyout is an effort by Salesforce to beef-up the communication apps ecosystem. The purchase of Slack Technologies will enable Salesforce to compete head-to-head with Microsoft Teams, the industry leader in the enterprise communication space, and Cisco Webex.

Over the past few years, Microsoft Teams has achieved several new improvements and achieved substantial growth, primarily since it integrates well with the MS Office 365 subscription productivity package with the Azure Cloud. (See: Online project management tools: Top office suite analysis)

Even in the CRM software space, where Salesforce’s Sales Cloud has been leading for a long time, Microsoft is making rapid progress. Microsoft’s Dynamics platform appears like a serious threat to the supremacy of Salesforce. Businesses that are already running plenty of Microsoft tools mostly prefer the Dynamics platform because of their quick integration.

Salesforce seems to have also sensed the urgency to expand its horizons into the collaboration software space, which has become lucrative amidst the COVID-19 turmoil. The Slack buy will also help Salesforce take a quantum leap in meeting its customers’ new transformation needs.

“As software plays a more and more critical role in the performance of every organization, we share a vision of reduced complexity, increased power and flexibility, and ultimately a greater degree of alignment and organizational agility. I believe this is the most strategic combination in the history of software, and I can’t wait to get going,” says Stewart Butterfield, Slack CEO and Cofounder, in a statement.

The Slack buy came after Salesforce had put a lot of effort into creating its enterprise collaboration tool, Chatter, in 2009, and very recently, Salesforce Anywhere with limited success.

 

MORE FROM BETTER WORLD

Atal Community Innovation Centre launched

Atal Community Innovation Centre launched

Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel Dharmendra Pradhan launched Atal Community Innovation Centre (ACIC) in New Delhi, to encourage the spirit of innovation at the community level. This initiative aims to encourage the spirit of innovation through solution-driven design thinking to serve society, a PIB release said.

Speaking on the occasion, Pradhan said, Atal Innovation Mission has a key role to perform in order to achieve the target of five trillion dollar economy by 2025. He urged the NITI Aayog to open innovation Centres in all Gram Panchayats of the country to promote local innovation. Pradhan said innovation is part of every Indian’s daily affairs and there is need to support and promote them.He said that traditional and conventional knowledge available in the country needs to be supported and brought into the mainstream, through innovative mechanism.

Dharmendra Pradhan

The minister urged for innovative mechanism to harness and support traditional knowledge in the country.

Lauding the efforts of NITI Aayog in coming up with the idea of ACICs, the Minister said that they will make available cutting-edge innovation platforms across all corners of our country, with a focus on Aspirational Districts, Tier 2 and 3 cities and to North-east and J&K which will give a fillip to the skill development and employment opportunities in these areas. ACIC’s grassroot-level approach shall focus on a community oriented problem solving through small ideas with a big impact. ACICs will become a conduit for CSR funding by private and public sector firms in addition to direct funding through Atal Innovation Mission (AIM).

Pradhan said reducing the lab to land distance is one of the key objectives of AIM and Atal Community Innovation Centre will help in further strengthening our mission to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem of India. ACICs will add a new chapter to India’s innovation story. It is a platform where the most innovative minds of the country can get access to solutions to modern entrepreneurial challenges.

The Minister also said that India produces approx. 600 MMT of non-fossilised biomass through farm waste, which if converted to energy can help usher prosperity in rural economy, promote a sustainable energy future & make our Annadatas, our ‘Urjadata’, in line with Hon. PM’s vision of Waste to Wealth creation. This is a CSR initiative in true sense.He expressed full support for the culture of innovation in the Country and assured that the public sector undertakings from Steel and Petroleum Sectors will provide support and hand-holding in this innovation mission. “I have asked Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) to support this initiative, I also request NITI Aayog & AIM to innovate ACICs to help in finding innovative solutions to extract consumable energy from Biomass available in the country”, Pradhan said. The Minister added that Unique and incentivized solutions offered by ACICs will encourage students, researchers and other individuals/group of individuals to ideate and design novel solutions. ACICs will also connect innovative thinkers to our market and mainstream economy.

ACIC is a new initiative of Atal Innovation Mission to support community innovation drive in the country. The program is directed to encourage the spirit of innovation through solution driven design thinking to serve the society. It will focus on underserved and unserved regions of the country which at present lack a vibrant start-up and innovation ecosystem. ACIC will be established either in PPP mode or with support of PSUs and other agencies. The maximum grant-in-aid support form AIM will be up to 2.5 crores subject following compliance to ACIC guidelines and contributing matching form the host institutions and their funding partners.

Following are the distinguishing features of the program:

  • Enabling infrastructure for building innovation ecosystem in above proposed areas.
  • Community oriented approach to innovation by enabling solutions through advanced tinkering
  • Offer opportunities to innovators to ideate in areas of societal importance
  • Capacity building of communities in evolving technologies and taking their solutions from ideation to prototype.
  • Promoting design thinking process to spur innovation
  • Providing a framework to engage local industries to facilitate offering of innovative solutions in their products, services and processes
  • Public private Partnership (PPP) mode to ensure financial sustainability and participationof central agencies, PSUs etc. to mobilize resources for running the program
  • Offer an opportunity for everyone to innovate, ideate and design impactful solutions, irrespective of their age.
  • One of the unique feature of this program wherein talented students and youth of ITI and Diploma will be offered opportunity to display their and build innovative solutions through ACIC.
  • The program will offer a big leapfrog jump towards establishing Indian for further scale up the ranking in Global Innovation Index.

The Vice-Chairman of the NITI Aayog Rajiv Kumar and CEO of the Aayog Amitabh Kant also spoke on the occasion.

A new logo, posters, brochure and video, AICC website, and application portal were also launched on the occasion.

Innovate to turn biomass into energy: Pradhan

Innovate to turn biomass into energy: Pradhan

Dharmendra Pradhan

The minister says 600 MMT of non-fossilized biomass could be converted to energy.

Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel Dharmendra Pradhan has said that India produces approximately 600 MMT of non-fossilized biomass through farm waste, as per a Press Information Bureau release. This, if converted to energy, can help usher prosperity in rural economy, promote a sustainable energy and make our Annadatas (foodgrains providers), our Urjadatas (energy providers), in line with PM’s vision of Waste to Wealth creation.

Pradhan was speaking at the launch of Atal Community Innovation Centre (ACIC) in New Delhi, which has been set up to encourage the spirit of innovation at the community level across the country.

Noting that this was a CSR initiative in true sense, Pradhan expressed full support for the culture of innovation in the country and assured that the public sector undertakings from steel and petroleum sectors will provide support and hand-holding in this innovation mission. “I have asked Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) to support this initiative, I also request NITI Aayog & AIM to innovate ACICs to help in finding innovative solutions to extract consumable energy from Biomass available in the country”, the minister said. He added that unique and incentivized solutions offered by ACICs will encourage students, researchers and other individuals/group of individuals to ideate and design novel solutions. ACICs will also connect innovative thinkers to our market and mainstream economy.

India holds energy talks with Niger, Togo, and Tonga

India holds energy talks with Niger, Togo, and Tonga

Amina Moumouni, the Minister of Energy, Niger.

Marc Dederiwe Ably- Bidamon, Minister of Energy and Mines, Togo.

Union Minister of State for Power and New & Renewable Energy (IC) and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship RK Singh held bilateral meetings with Energy Ministers of Niger, Togo, and Tonga on 30 July. The bilateral talks were held with Amina Moumouni, the Minister of Energy, Niger; Marc Dederiwe Ably- Bidamon, Minister of Energy and Mines, Togo and Poasi Mataele Tei, Minister of Energy, Tonga in New Delhi, a PIB release said.

Poasi Mataele Tei, Minister of Energy, Tonga.

The meetings were held on the sidelines of first International Solar Alliance (ISA) Standing Committee Meeting in New Delhi. During the meetings, the Minister discussed various issues pertaining to ISA and areas of bilateral cooperation between India and these countries in Energy sector.

The ISA is an alliance of more than 122 countries headquartered in India. As the largest grouping of countries after the United Nations, ISA’s objective is to leverage solar energy in an efficient manner in order to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. As per the International Solar Alliance (ISA), it is conceived as a coalition of solar resource rich countries to address their special energy needs and provide a platform to collaborate on addressing the identified gaps through a common, agreed approach. The initiative was first proposed by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015.

 

Govt mulls waterways for the Northeast region

Govt mulls waterways for the Northeast region

(Representative image)

The Ministry of Shipping is keen to start inland waterways navigation and passenger transportation in the rivers in the North Eastern states of the country. Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Shipping and MoS, C&F has said that the public sector company Water and Power Consultancy Services Limited (WAPCOS) is preparing a model detailed project report (DPR) for implementing projects for running low-cost ferry services in the inland waterways in these states. This model DPR can be adopted for quick implementation by the Inland Waterways Authority of India in consultation with the different state governments in the region.

As per a PIB release, Mandaviya also said that inland waterways transport can be a game changer for the North Eastern states as land routes here are often long, circuitous and time consuming due to the difficult terrain. Besides bringing ease of movement, the waterways projects will also help generate employment locally, he said.

It is noteworthy that after the passing of the 2016 National Waterways Act, India has made significant progress in developing new waterways. When it comes to the Northeast, waterway navigation could help cut distances as well as the carbon footprint in the region by several notches and hence may be seen as a positive for the environment. Given the intent to focus on low-cost ferry services, the impact on river ecology may also be designed to be minimum.

PM lays stress on balancing development and environment as tiger count nears 3,000

PM lays stress on balancing development and environment as tiger count nears 3,000

royal bengal tiger

A Royal Bengal tiger in Kanha National Park, Madhya Pradesh, India. (Source: Wikipedia)

On the occasion of Global Tiger Day today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the results of the fourth cycle of All India Tiger Estimation – 2018, at Lok Kalyan Marg in New Delhi. The count of tigers in India, has risen to 2,967, in 2018, according to this survey.

Speaking on the occasion, the Prime Minister described this as a historic achievement for India, and reaffirmed India’s commitment towards protecting the tiger. The Prime Minister appreciated the speed and dedication with which various stakeholders worked to achieve this. He described it as one of the finest examples of Sankalp Se Siddhi. Once the people of India decide to do something, there is no force that can prevent them from getting the desired results, he declared.

The Prime Minister said that with almost 3000 tigers, India is today among the biggest and most secure habitats.

Prime Minister asserted that the way ahead is “collectiveness” instead of “selectiveness.” He said that a broad-based and holistic look is essential for environmental conservation. He said, it is possible to strike a healthy balance between development and environment. “In our policies, in our economics, we have to change the conversation about conservation,” he added.

India will build more homes for our citizens and that the same time create quality habitats for animals. India will have a vibrant marine economy and a healthier marine ecology. This balance is what will contribute to a strong and inclusive India, the Prime Minister asserted.

He expressed confidence that India will prosper both economically and environmentally; India will build more roads and India will have cleaner rivers; India will have better train connectivity and also greater tree coverage.

He said that in the last five years, while work has proceeded at a fast pace for next-generation infrastructure, the forest cover in the country has also grown. There has also been an increase in the “protected areas.” In 2014, there were 692 protected areas, which increased to more than 860 in 2019. The “Community Reserves” have also grown from 43, in 2014, to more than 100 now.

The Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Prakash Javdekar; the Union Minister of State for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Babul Supriyo; and the Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, C.K. Mishra, were present on the occasion.

News Source: Press Information Bureau 

Pix Source: Wikipedia (see attribution)

Mega capacity building program launched for sustainable rural water supply and sanitation

Mega capacity building program launched for sustainable rural water supply and sanitation

water supply

The program aims to improve rural water supply and sanitation. (Representative image.)

The Union Minister of Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, launched the capacity strengthening initiative of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS), Ministry of Jal Shakti, in Ranchi, Jharkhand on 27 July. He was joined at the event by the Minister of State for the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Rattan Lal Kataria, Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Raghubar Das, and Minister of the Drinking Water and Sanitation,Government of Jharkhand, Ramchandra Sahis. This initiative will create a pool of 2,800 field trainers in its initial trainings, who will reach out to around 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats across the country.

The initiative seeks to ensure the sustainability of open defecation free (ODF) villages created under the Swachh Bharat Mission in the long term and enable field trainers and members of Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs)  to create capacity to manage solid and liquid wastes as well as improve access to safe and adequate drinking water supply.

Addressing more than 6,000 Mukhiyas (i.e., panchayat heads), Jal Sahiyas, Swachhagrahis and others present on the occasion, Shekhawat emphasized the need for people’s participation highlighting that it is now time to turn the “jal ka andolan” into “jan ka andolan”to avert the impending water crisis. He appreciated the role of people who has committed themselves towards the cause of the Swachh Bharat Mission. Because of their efforts, in ODF and sanitized villages lakhs of lives have been saved, he added. He urged the people to re-energize their efforts for enabling sustained safe sanitation practices and expanding their efforts towards the provision of piped water supply to every household.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Rattan Lal Kataria also appreciated the role played by the various stakeholders in making Jharkhand State ODF and reiterated that the country is on track to achieve an ODF India by 2nd October 2019, on the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

Addressing the gathering, Secretary, DDWS, Parameswaran Iyer shared the details of the capacity building training program. He shared that by January 2020, four Field Trainers (FTs) from each district will be trained through five-day Training of Trainers (ToTs) organized by the DDWS. The FTs would then train Sarpanchs, village secretaries and Swachhagrahis in their districts through a 3-day field training supported by the states and the districts, completing the entire exercise by March 2020.

During the event, a booklet and a film on the Jharkhand State Government’s Menstrual Hygiene Management Campaign – ‘Chuppi Todo-Swasth Raho’ Abhiyan were released while grassroots functionaries shared their experiences of being a part of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen). This was followed by an award ceremony recognizing the outstanding contributions in the field of sanitation.

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