Microsoft may not be interested in acquiring Salesforce.com after all.
Reuters cited two sources on Thursday who say the Redmond giant is not “weighing an offer” to scoop up Salesforce, despite an earlier report indicating a possible bid from Microsoft.
Reuters noted that the valuation for San Francisco-based Salesforce, a market leader in the CRM industry, is too expensive for Microsoft. As of Friday afternoon, Salesforce has a market cap of $49 billion.
As we noted last month, a deal with Salesforce would make sense as an acquisition for Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, allowing him to solidify Microsoft’s position in cloud computing, where he is already focusing much of the company’s attention. In some ways, it makes far more sense for Microsoft than did the Nokia smartphone acquisition, which is a leftover of Steve Ballmer’s tenure at the company.
It would also play to Microsoft’s traditional strength as an enterprise technology provider, further distancing the company from rivals such as Apple and Google.
Although such a deal would have seemed almost out of question a year ago, Microsoft and Salesforce have been working together more closely following their partnership announcement last May.
