ACCC gives green light to Salesforce's acquisition of Slack

The ACCC has said it will not oppose the proposed acquisition of Slack by Salesforce.

“Salesforce and Slack mostly supply different software with distinct purposes, so there is minimal direct competitive overlap between them,” ACCC Chair Rod Sims said.

The Commission focused on whether Salesforce having both CRM and team collaboration solutions could lead to reduced market competition but concluded that it was unlikely that the deal would competitively disadvantage either Slack’s or Salesforce’s rivals.

“Most interested parties raised no concerns. Market participants said that if Salesforce engaged in anti-competitive bundling or foreclosure conduct, customers could switch to alternative CRM solutions, including global enterprise software companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Adobe. Similarly, customers could switch to alternative team collaboration solutions, such as Microsoft Teams,” Sims said.

“We consider, due to commercial and reputational risks, that Salesforce would be unlikely to disadvantage competitors by degrading interoperability between Salesforce’s CRM solution and competitors’ team collaboration solutions, or between Slack’s team collaboration solution and competitors’ CRM solutions.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/goldencow_images