Salesforce.com Inc., San Francisco's largest tech employer and host of that really big conference called Dreamforce, has begun to work with financial advisers after receiving takeover offers, Bloomberg reports. Sources say that the company was approached by a potential acquirer, and though it's just speculation at this point, it would of course be huge news if it happened.
Specifically, if Salesforce were acquired, it would be the largest ever of a software company, as well as a big boost for cloud computing.
Salesforce was up 11.6 percent in New York trading today to give it a market value of around $49 billion. According to Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR & Co., Oracle is the most “realistic buyer.”“Oracle is desperate to establish itself as a leader in the cloud, and acquiring the leading cloud company and bringing on board a visionary leader in Marc Benioff would help toward accomplishing this goal,” wrote Ives. Benioff, philanthropist and CEO, was last seen giving Jeb Bush an earful when the presidential hopeful came to town.
Big Salesforce rivals, in addition to Oracle, are Microsoft and SAP, but they're behind Salesforce when it comes to customer relationship management technologies, at least according to a yearly ranking from researcher Gartner Inc.
The Business Times reached out to Benioff, who wrote back: "We never comment on rumors simply because we can't. Aloha, Marc." And we were just getting used to thinking of it as the Salesforce Tower, too.
