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How the Salesforce acquisition of Slack shows how Microsoft won out - The Verge

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By Casey Newton, a contributing editor who has been writing about tech for over 10 years. He founded Platformer, a newsletter about Big Tech and democracy. Slack’s life as an underdog darling of Silicon Valley ended on November 2nd, 2016. That’s when the upstart communication startup published an open letter to Microsoft in The New York Times, offering the tech giant an insincere “welcome” to the world of workplace chat software. The occasion was Microsoft’s launch of Teams, a Slack clone that would come bundled with the company’s popular Office 365 suite of products. In its letter, Slack warned Microsoft that “Slack is here to stay,” adding, “We’re just getting started.” But the 4 million users it had at the time would increase to just 12 million four years later, while Microsoft — which added Teams to its 365 bundle without increasing the price — took Teams from zero to 115 million users. That disparity helps to explain why Slack sold itself this week to Salesforce. The deal, which v

Tech Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All Tech Microsoft Microsoft Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All Microsoft Slack Slack Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All Slack How Microsoft crushed Slack And why the era of worker-centered work tools may be over And why the era of worker-centered work tools may be over by Casey Newton Casey Newton Last published Aug 18, 2025 Posts from this author will be

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