14 DAY TRIAL // There was a time when Microsoft and Salesforce worked together as close partners, but everything was ruined when the software giant decided to purchase business social network LinkedIn.
Salesforce itself planned to take over LinkedIn as well, only that Microsoft had the financial power to outbid all of its competitors and secure the service. Salesforce then attempted to stop the acquisition from being completed by complaining of possible competition rules violation, warning that Microsoft could block access to LinkedIn data for all of its rivals.
The takeover did complete and LinkedIn now belongs to Microsoft, but Salesforce still doesn’t seem to be able to get over it and leave the hard feelings behind.
“Will Microsoft and Salesforce come back together?”
Speaking at the investor meeting, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff had a pretty surprising answer when he was asked whether he sees his company and Microsoft “coming back together on behalf of customers.” We included the full response below because every single word is quite important:
“ No, there's always one person in the room who's using a Surface laptop, so I get that. And it's you. Who else is using a Surface laptop? Raise your hand. OK, we have three people. And how many are using Macs? Raise your hand. How many iPads? OK. How many PCs? And then we've got the three Surface. ”
“ You know, look. They're 1 percent of the CRM market. You know the numbers. I like having competitors. But what I just get blown away with is how they just can't keep, you know, that management team in place. They just keep leaving Microsoft. You know that. And I think they don't have confidence in that ability to execute in that business. So that has weighed to our favor, and customers feel that. ”
“ You know because you go to these conferences just like I do. There is no conference like this that they do and that's the — in my opinion, the mark. That is — why is it that they don't have anything like this? That when they put on a conference like something — it's always the resellers who come together, and then -- where are these people? Now, that isn't to say they don't have, like, Build, where they get these really high-end developers using the IDE. ”
“ You know what I mean? Is that the conference I've been to where I'm like, Oh, yeah, these are all the -- and they're all Windows -- they have a Windows fever. And they have Windows API fever at the conference. But I haven't seen that in any other part of their business, other than the Windows API. Maybe they'll get it in Azure -- I don't know. But I haven't seen that yet. Because the last time that I went to the conference, I didn't see that. I only see that fever around the Windows API. And the Surface laptop. ”
Does this mean that Salesforce no longer thinks it’s possible to ever work with Microsoft again? Hard to say judging from this answer. The statement does start with a “no,” but most of it is supposed to trash the Surface, the Microsoft leadership, and the company in general, despite the question that was asked could have been answered in a much more diplomatic way.Microsoft hasn’t offered a statement just yet to comment on this, and there’s a good chance the company will never discuss Benioff’s rage.