Salesforce is to buy cloud word processing app Quip for £442 million.
The CRM provider is continuing to add cloud services to its portfolio and sees Quip’s collaboration platform, which counts Facebook among its customers, as the next piece in the jigsaw.
Quip wrote in a blog post: “Salesforce and Quip share the same philosophy about software: it should be in the cloud, built for the mobile era, and be inherently social.
“Salesforce pioneered the shift to enterprise cloud computing – and Quip has been working since 2012 to reimagine a productivity platform for teams that allows them to be more connected, more collaborative and get more work done.
“We’re inspired by the possibilities ahead of us. As part of Salesforce, we will be able to expand our service more quickly and reach millions of people all over the world – which has been our mission since day one.
“The possibilities of mixing data, content and communication are amazing.”
Salesforce recently acquired deep learning technology start-up MetaMind with a view to embedding artificial intelligence within its services.
Quip was founded in 2012 by former Facebook CTO Bret Taylor (pictured left) and Kevin Gibbs (right), of Google Apps.
Thrilled to be joining @Benioff and the @Salesforce team! https://t.co/SJOPKO7Jqt
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) August 1, 2016
@jordannovet @quip @btaylor Brett will work for me and run Quip directly with Kevin! We all love the future together.
— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) August 1, 2016
Taylor was the co-creator of Google Maps and Facebook’s ‘like’ button.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told Business Insider that he was key to the deal.
“He’s one of the absolute rising stars of our industry,” he said. “It’s been my dream to work more closely with Bret Taylor.”