Customer relationship management provider Salesforce has agreed to acquire Quip, the San Francisco based maker of cloud based tools. According to the SEC filing, Salesforce will pay about $582 million in stock for the purchase and will make Quip their wholly owned subsidiary.
Quip announced on their blog :
As part of Salesforce, we will be able to expand our service more quickly and reach millions of people all over the world.
Salesforce and Quip share the same philosophy about software: it should be in the cloud, built for the mobile era, and be inherently social.
This year alone, Salesforce has bought 7 companies, including DemandWare which cost $2.8 billion. Quip is a competitor of Microsoft Word and Google Docs as it allows management services which are similar to their products. Analysts say that Salesforce’s acquisition of Quip indicates their willingness to take on these giants in the field of collaboration.
Denis Pombriant, Managing Principal at Beagle Research Group in analysis of the deal said :
A platform must be universal and all-encompassing, because its mission is to be a complete one-stop shop for customers.
So Salesforce had to be able to check off that box.