14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s always looking for new acquisitions that could help it improve its product portfolio (and its takeovers in the Android and iOS markets come as living proof), so it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that the company has recently tried to purchase Slack too.
A report by TechCrunch citing people with knowledge of the matter reveals that Microsoft planned a bid of as much as $8 billion (€7.2 billion) for Slack, which reportedly became extremely appealing to the Redmond-based software giant after announcing new voice and video services earlier this week.
Nadella and Bill Gates didn’t agree with the takeover
And while it makes sense for Microsoft to take over Slack and thus further improve Skype, it appears that the deal was blocked by CEO Satya Nadella and founder Bill Gates themselves.
Slack, which currently has 2.3 million daily activity users (and the aforementioned source estimates that 675,000 of them are paying subscribers), is said to be one of the fiercest rivals to Skype, and the recent improvements to the service position it as the top alternative to Microsoft’s solution.
This is one of the reasons Gates and Nadella opposed the takeover, with the Microsoft founder reportedly asking for more improvements to Skype that would “make it more competitive in the business market,” the source says. In other words, Gates wanted Microsoft to make the most of Skype’s business potential without a Slack takeover, so now several improvements in this regard are expected to be announced.
Certainly, this doesn’t necessarily mean that negotiations have stopped completely, and Microsoft could still take over Slack at some point in the future, but for the moment, it’s very clear that Skype remains Redmond’s key point of focus. Furthermore, it’ll receive more attention in the coming months as Microsoft wants to improve its portfolio in the enterprise.