Technology acquisition again reinforces importance of cloud computing
Cloud computing can give businesses opportunities to create innovative and cost-effective solutions for their customers, often in interesting ways. Technology mergers and acquisitions continue to show that this trend is not disappearing anytime soon, as companies across numerous industries are working toward unique products and services.
Such is the case with Salesforce announcing that it has completed its acquisition of ExactTarget, which is a cloud marketing automation platform. The website offers sales, service and social marketing solutions, and the technology acquisition is expected to improve its marketing offerings to customers. According to a Salesforce press release, the opportunity can boost its marketing platform in terms of email, social, mobile and web.
"By bringing together ExactTarget's industry-leading marketing automation and campaign management capabilities with Salesforce's leading social marketing solutions … we will deliver the marketing platform of choice for CMOs," ExactTarget CEO Scott Dorsey said in the press release.
The total cost will be about $2.5 billion, but the move is also expected to increase Salesforce's revenue by about $120 million over the next year.
Salesforce chairman and CEO Marc Benioff said in a statement that adding ExactTarget into his company will make it the starting point for every business. The acquisition puts Salesforce "in the pole position" to capture all possible opportunities.
While the announcement was finalized at the end of last week, the technology world is already positively responding. VentureBeat reported that ExactTarget's stock price jumped 9 percent when the acquisition was finalized.
CMSWire's Barb Mosher Zinck explained in a contribution piece that ExactTarget's tools will be more attractive to different types of businesses. There is great opportunity to create better customer engagement and collect data, which will help both companies in the long-run.