Weirdly enough, another Salesforce acquisition - the API-farmer MuleSoft - underscores weaknesses in its M&A strategy. Salesforce already let CEO Mark Nelson go from the data analytics division in December while other managers were axed last Wednesday.

Tableau, the data visualization and analytics system bought for $15.7 billion in 2019, was hit proportionally harder by job cuts than other Salesforce divisions, according to reports last week. Yet Slack is not the only Salesforce acquisition raising questions.

If Slack isn't bringing anything to Salesforce, what is Salesforce bringing to Slack? Are customers really likely to base their office chat decision on their existing CRM system? Salesfolk, their customers, and the utility of the tools Slack is used by all kinds of employees, from engineers to accountants to, erm, journalists. The observation is in line with Slack's revenue growth, which slid to 6.9 percent quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter, down from 9.3 percent in the second quarter and 11.7 percent in the first quarter (Slack subscription and support revenues are detailed as Platform and Other). The publication also quotes a Salesforce CRM user who seems unimpressed by Slack and content to carry on with Microsoft Teams as the chat platform of choice.

Salesforce bought slack