Just a week before Salesforce’s annual conference in San Francisco, Slack, the popular workplace chat tool, is announcing a partnership with the sales software company.
On Tuesday, Slack said that its users will now be able to connect the two tools, reducing how much they would need to flip back and forth between them. Users can search their Salesforce data via Slack, create Slack conversation channels associated with specific items in Salesforce, and connect Slack to two other Salesforce products: SalesforceIQ and Quip, the Google Docs competitor the software giant recently acquired.
Slack is the latest workplace software company to team up with Salesforce (CRM), which already has partnerships with companies like Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon Web Services (AMZN), Cisco (CSCO), and Box (BOX).
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Perhaps a bit awkward is the fact that Salesforce offers its own workplace chat service, named Chatter. While companies often prefer to avoid promoting a competing product, Salesforce may see more value in working with Slack and making it easier for their mutual customers to work with both, than to attempt to convince them to use Chatter. The integration could also lead some Slack customers to sign up for Salesforce now that they can use it right from the Slack app.
Founded in 2013 as the reboot of a gaming company that wasn’t finding much success, Slack quickly rose to popularity among tech companies, mostly thanks to its quirky style as well as fun and easy-to-use features. Integrating its service with other business tools has been a main focus for Slack, which even helped set up a $80 million fund last year to invest in startups building apps that work with Slack.
This initial integration between Slack and Salesforce’s tools is only the beginning, according to Slack, adding they plan to adding more features and ways in which their shared customers can use their tools more easily.
