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Bay Area Economy Thread: Jobs, Business, Finance

175K views 496 replies 61 participants last post by  densha otaku 
#1 ·
In case you were confused about which part of the Bay Area is associated with Silicon Valley (I'm sure many of us are) here's a handy map:

Pink = San Francisco
Yellow = Oakland
Blue = Silicon Valley
 
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1
#303 ·
Wells Fargo Nears Market-Value Milestone
By EMILY GLAZER, CHRISTINA REXRODE and DAN FITZPATRICK
June 15, 2014 8:29 p.m. ET

. . . A rally in its stock has put Wells Fargo on the cusp of becoming the most valuable U.S. bank of all time, eclipsing the record held by . . . the bank now known as Citigroup Inc.

Wells Fargo shares closed at $51.90 on Friday, up more than 14% for the year. Larger rivals J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup are down in 2014. Wells Fargo's stock-market value of $272.36 billion is the most of any U.S. bank now and about $10 billion shy of the record among banks of $282.75 billion set by Citigroup in 2001.

The lesson in Wells Fargo's rally: It is better to be a large Main Street bank than a big Wall Street firm.

Tough rules on risk-taking and a slowdown in trading are weighing on investment banks' profits. Wells Fargo, never a big trading firm, has focused on generating revenue from its bread-and-butter businesses of commercial and consumer lending and mortgages as rivals pulled away after the financial crisis.

All told, Wells Fargo made $36 billion worth of mortgage loans in the first quarter, with an industry-leading 16% market share, according to data provider Inside Mortgage Finance. It has about 6,200 branches, the most among U.S. lenders, and is the third-largest bank by deposits, one spot ahead of Citigroup.

In the past six years, Wells Fargo has added about 104,000 jobs, largely through its acquisition of Wachovia Corp., while Citigroup has cut about 120,000 as it eliminates businesses. The other megabanks have added smaller numbers of jobs over the same period.

Wells Fargo also has been the steadiest performer in the volatile banking sector since the financial crisis, generating 15 straight quarters of profit growth, according to FactSet.

Going back 10 years, Wells Fargo's stock has gained 76%, outperforming the S&P 500-stock index and handily beating Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America and Citigroup . . . .

Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco . . . .
http://online.wsj.com/articles/wells-fargo-nears-market-value-milestone-1402878547
 
#306 ·
Have you been sleeping since 2008? BofA still hasn't got out of the trouble it got into then (although I believe it eventually will and hold TARP warrants on its stock that mature in 2018 by which time I think the problems finally will be over).
 
#305 ·
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/...-will-move-hq-to-north-san-jose.html?page=all

An interesting example of several continuing trends: Spansion is moving from Sunnyvale to SJ and its former 24 acre campus is being torn down for new housing (selling from $600k to over 1M and aimed at the $150-200k income family that is now “priced-out” of the SV market!!).

Over the last few years, they have down-sized their space needs, moved manufacturing capabilities out of state and headed southeast to SJ for cheaper land. Plus their old campus is becoming housing close to a key tech center.
 
#309 ·
Jun 17, 2014, 6:52am PDT UPDATED: Jun 17, 2014, 10:08am PDT
McDonald's takes a bite out of Mid-Market, opens tech office near Twitter
John Sailors
Morning Edition Editor-San Francisco Business Times

McDonald's has become the latest national chain to turn to the Bay Area for tech innovation, opening an office along San Francisco's Market Street and recruiting engineers.

Ad Age reported the effort, led by McDonald's Chief Digital Officer Atif Rafiq, is aimed at attracting the best talent as the company works to better focus on digital.

McDonald's has so far hired only a couple of people for the office, from the likes of PayPal, Facebook and Yahoo. The location can house 15 to 20 staff . . . .

Among the technologies the company is reported to be working on is mobile payments, an area targeted by banks, tech giants and telecoms.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranc...take-a-bite-out-of-mid-market-opens-tech.html
 
#310 ·
British Columbia court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

In an unprecedented ruling, a B.C. court has ordered Google Inc. to block a group of websites from its worldwide search engine – a decision raising questions over how far one country’s courts can exert their power over the borderless Internet.

The temporary injunction, issued by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon on June 13, came despite arguments from Google’s lawyers that Canada’s courts did not have the jurisdiction to tell Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., to block access to the websites anywhere in the world.

In an e-mailed statement, Google said it was disappointed in the decision and said it would launch an appeal. It declined requests for an interview.

Legal observers say the court order raises broader questions – questions increasingly dogging judges around the world – about just whose rules should prevail as the Internet continues to blur or erase national borders.

It follows a landmark decision by the European Union Court of Justice on the so-called “right to be forgotten” that forces Google to take down certain information about private individuals if asked.

The B.C. injunction, which orders Google to comply within 14 days, is part of a court fight launched by Burnaby, B.C.-based Equustek Solutions Inc., which makes and sells complex industrial networking devices.

According to the ruling, the company alleges that a group of former associates stole its trade secrets in order to manufacture competing products, which they continue to sell through a network of websites, in “flagrant” defiance of numerous previous court orders.

[...]
 
#312 · (Edited)
This happens quite often and usually gets handled on appeals where the judges are (marginally) less goofy.

As it turns out, I was involved in a group theorizing the extent to which local jurisdictions could legislate over web sites located in other countries (this came up first in the pornography area, which became the biggest on-line business right from day 1; then gambling, etc.). There are a number of theories on this but rogue legislators and judges are always finding new ways to impose their own views on the world.

I don't expect it will ever change because judges now are fully sold on the idea of "activism" and that it is their duty to protect or attack whatever they feel like based on bribes, local politics, political ambition, etc.

btw, in the late '90's Mexico made noises about arresting websites that contained pornography that could be accessed by people in Mexico. For a few weeks the officers of a major internet search engine told it's officers not to go to Mexico for fear of arrest.
 
#316 ·
The article is only talking about Silicon Valley, but it probably applies to tech jobs all over the Bay Area.

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post...ilicon-valley-drives-salaries-to-record-highs

The War for Software Talent in Silicon Valley Drives Salaries to Record Highs!


Anyone who has lived in Silicon Valley for a while and works in the high tech world, particularly in software, can attest to a market where the competition for solid talent has continued to grow more competitive by the year. As a high tech recruiter managing an office focused on placing software engineers I have seen both the competition for talent grow as well as that very same competition drive salaries into a realm that we have never seen before.

To be fair, salaries for software engineers in Silicon Valley have always been, on average, probably the highest in the United States. I personally came up from LA in March of 2007 and noticed right away the differences in salary ranges in Silicon Valley. For example, very top tier software engineers or architects in Los Angeles would on average be making somewhere in the 110k-125k range give or take. Entry-level grads with a BS in CS from top Universities like UCLA would start out making 50k-70k. These numbers all sounded pretty reasonable to me when you take into account averages for other professions and cost of living. Coming to Silicon Valley definitely was eye opening. Recent grads were getting 70k-80k. Senior Engineers were on average getting anywhere from 120k-140k. These average numbers really blew me away.

Fast forward to 2010. We’ve just come out of a pretty nasty recession and the rest of the country is still hurting economically. Silicon Valley however is on the rebound. After a few years of radio silence in the venture capital world the money is flowing again. Software engineers that have put in a solid 3-5 years with their current companies and have waited out the recession are beginning to sense that there’s a new boom on the rise. Companies begin to use those funds to hire top talent. At first, salaries seem to stay the same on average. But as 2011 begins trends start to emerge. Facebook and Google begin competing fiercely for the very best young software talent and willing to pay 100k+ for entry-level software engineers. Other companies like Yahoo follow suite forcing venture-funded start-ups to also raise their salaries. Those engineers that had been making 125k-140k are looking for new jobs and, with the demand for their skills, are not willing to consider lateral moves. This drives the salaries up and now 150k base salaries for Senior Software Engineers has become the average. New trends in the market like Big Data and HTML5 drive the salaries up even more.

...
 
#318 ·
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/07/15/silicon-valley-real-wages-outstrip-next-best.html

Silicon Valley real wages outstrip next best market by $10K — despite sky-high housing costs

With Silicon Valley's $2,000-a-month rents and $4.6 million median priced homes, it might seem like even a big paycheck is quickly eaten up by the high costs of living.
But a new analysis shows that Silicon Valley workers still bring home much more money than their peers in other cities even after shelling out for inflated housing prices.
A new analysis of federal data by the Atlantic CityLab and Arizona State University found that workers in the San Jose metro area bring home real average wages — or the money left over after factoring in costs of living — of $75,288 per year. That compares to $64,321 in Stamford, Connecticut, $60,562 in San Francisco and wages in the $55,000-range in affluent sections of Maryland, North Carolina and Texas.

...
Salaries are higher enough in Silicon Valley to make up the difference in COL, but I think that really depends on your housing needs.
 
#319 ·
200,000 housing units in Bay Area pipeline. Is it enough to move the needle?

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranc...ipeline-report-sf-bay-area-concord-group.html

"There are 200,000 housing units in the planning pipeline or under construction throughout the Bay Area and approximately 43 percent of those are rental units. The housing pipeline number, which was reported by a Bay Area real estate consultancy, includes market-rate and affordable projects in San Francisco, the East Bay, Peninsula and Silicon Valley down through San Jose.

About 64,000 of those units are in San Francisco, and that number includes 14,000 units in large San Francisco projects such as Treasure Island, Candlestick Point and Schlage Lock. Schlage will soon be under construction."
 
#320 ·
Sounds like good news, even though they note that the horizon on some of those projects is 15 years or more and many will never get funded or built.

You figure that SF and SJ are going to be the biggest locations, but I would guess they will also tend to have the most pipedream "mega-projects" that are never fully realized.
 
#322 ·
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranc...-chunk-of-pacific-shores-iconic.html?page=all

Kind of exciting, right by the Port of Redwood City where they were testing out ferry service. I wonder if the protesters will try to stop the "Google Ferries" of the future.
Who even needs to commute? You'll just walk to your neighborhood Google complex, wherever you live. :lol:

I wonder if this makes the it more or less likely that they are the mystery tenant for the Peery-Arrillaga "First and Brokaw" project.
 
#323 ·
San Francisco Office Sales Nearing Record High

http://news.theregistrysf.com/san-francisco-office-sales-nearing-record-high/

"Office sales in the city are on track to hit $6.7 billion this year, the second highest volume total in history, according to a report by commercial real estate services firm CBRE Group, Inc. Further, the average price per square foot for Class A office space is at a record high of $648."

Good times in the City by the Bay. Unless you are looking for housing...
 
#331 ·
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/...nder-single-ownership-paus-sand.html?page=all

Big news in Cupertino as Peter Pau picks up complete ownership of Vallco and is starting the process of closing down the mostly dead mall and putting in 2M s/f of office space, 600k s/f of retail and extensive housing. Look like winners since the office vacancy rate is about zero in Cupertino and housing is in huge demand.

This is immediately across the freeway from Apple Campus II, the Spaceship, which will open in two years with about 14k employees.
 
#333 ·
Rents are getting pretty high up there:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erincar...forbes-2015-list-of-worst-cities-for-renters/

San Francisco Tops Forbes' 2015 List Of Worst Cities For Renters

San Francisco and Silicon Valley aren’t just churning out jobs and billionaires these days—America’s tech center is also producing what is arguably the nation’s worst housing shortage. The average monthly apartment rent in greater San Francisco is $2,802, second highest among the nation’s 50 biggest metropolitan areas. But what really makes the Bay Area a tough market for renters is the competition.

As of the fourth quarter of 2014, the vacancy rate in San Francisco stood at just 3.6%. Oakland was even worse with a vacancy rate of 2.9%, though average rents are cheaper at $1,815. San Jose had a $2,291 average rent and a 3.5% vacancy rate. The tightness of the rental market means that landlords can keep raising prices, which is why rental costs in each metro area have skyrocketed over the last year: San Francisco by 12.8%, Oakland by 10.5%, and San Jose by 11.3%.

“What makes a market unfavorable for a renter is not just the amount of rent and its relationship to income levels, but the vacancy and availability of units,” says Hessam Nadji, chief strategy officer and director of specialty groups at Calabasas, Calif.-based real estate investment firm Marcus & Millichap. “Property owners get a pricing power that is exceptional when vacancy falls below 5%. That’s when rent increases accelerate.”

...

Thanks to those atrocious and depressing housing numbers, the Bay Area and Silicon Valley sweep Forbes’ 2015 list of Worst Cities for Renters, with San Francisco No. 1, Oakland No. 2, and San Jose No. 3.

...
Good news for landlords, and homeowners, bad news for renters.
 
#334 ·
^^It's worse than that. That SF number isn't just the city. It includes some suburban jurisdictions (I assume the others like San Jose do as well) so it's worse, much worse in the city itself:

San Francisco Rents Slip From Record High
January 28, 2015
The average asking rent for an apartment in San Francisco was $3,392 at the end of 2014, up 11 percent over the past year and 55 percent higher since 2009, but down $8 a month from a record $3,400 in the third quarter of last year . . . .
http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2015/01/san-francisco-rents-slip-record-high.html
 
#335 ·
Guess it's not a surprise to anybody.

Also interesting is SoCal with 3 in the top 10. This is over 3 times as many people as the Bay Area counties included (Santa Clara, San Mateo, SF, Alameda). You gotta go 60 miles from Santa Monica to see reasonable rents. lol.

"NY" is artificially pushed higher by only counting Manhattan (the usual Forbes procedure). But adjacent Northern NJ is also very expensive.
 
#336 ·
http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/cities/best-places-tech-jobs-2015/

Best Places for Tech Jobs
by Sreekar Jasthi on April 27, 2015 | posted in Cities, Lifestyle
Best Places for Tech Jobs

The technology industry is booming, and the benefits are spreading far and wide — in California’s Silicon Valley and beyond. Metropolitan areas across the nation are home to opportunities in a variety of tech jobs.

Companies also are hiring for roles ranging from software developers and Web developers to computer and information research scientists and everything in between. The most successful tech cities are home to big companies or are places that encourage startups through accelerator programs and venture capital investment.

Best of the best
NerdWallet examined the nation’s 370 largest metropolitan areas to find the best places for tech jobs. All of the top 10 places for tech jobs feature more opportunities than the national average of 18 tech jobs for every 1,000 employees. The tech workers on our list are paid very well — every metro area on our list has a relatively higher average salary than the national mean of just under $70,500. Only one place in our top 10, however, has a lower median rent than the average median rent of the places we analyzed.

Here’s what we analyzed to find the best places for tech jobs:

Size of the tech industry. We examined the number of tech jobs for 1,000 employees in each metro area, using 2014 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Income for tech jobs. We looked at the annual mean salary for tech jobs in each area. We also considered the median gross rent as a cost-of-living metric to see how far the average income went in every place.

For more information on affordability in U.S. cities, check out NerdWallet’s cost of living calculator. For similar studies and more, visit NerdWallet Cities.

Key takeaways
Tech jobs are geographically diverse. Some places on our list are expected — Silicon Valley and Seattle — but tech hubs are found throughout the country. On the East Coast, tech companies are thriving in the Washington, D.C., corridor and the Boston metro area. To the south, there’s Huntsville, Alabama, and the Research Triangle in North Carolina. Boulder, Colorado, and the Silicon Hills of Austin, Texas, also made our list.

Information technology is the leader. Although all tech industry careers are flourishing, most of the top places on our list are computer science and information technology hubs. Opportunities in other areas, such as aerospace, biotech and other science- and research-based fields are most popular in the South’s Research Triangle and in Huntsville.

Want to be first to know about future NerdWallet studies? Click here to have updates sent to your inbox.

Best places for tech jobs in 2015

1. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California
It’s no surprise to see the heart of Silicon Valley at the top of our list: A whopping 126 of every 1,000 jobs are in the tech industry. The average tech salary here is also the highest on our list at more than $130,000 a year. Likewise, rents are high, with a median of over $1,600 a month. The valley is home to thousands of tech companies and startups, including big names in the industry: Apple, Adobe and eBay. Silicon Valley also made our lists of Best Places for Engineers and Best Places for STEM Graduates.

2. Huntsville, Alabama
The heart of the Southern tech scene is in Huntsville, Alabama. In Rocket City, 68 of every 1,000 jobs are in technology-related fields. Average salaries are on the lower end of our list at $92,296 annually, but median rent is cheapest at $725 a month. The city also made our list of Best Places for Engineers. The main drivers in Huntsville are at Cummings Research Park, a science and technology business park with hundreds of companies, and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

3. Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Washington
The Seattle metro area, including Bellevue and Everett, is anchored by tech giants Amazon and Microsoft, as well as the region’s aerospace mainstay the Boeing Co., but there’s also room for smaller companies, such as Expedia and Zillow. Meanwhile, Google, Facebook and Twitter all have operations in the area. Among these three cities, 77 of every 1,000 jobs are in tech. Salaries are on the higher end of our list at over $108,000 a year on average. In this Pacific Northwest area, median rent is over $1,100 a month. The region also made our list of Best Places for STEM Graduates.

4. Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Two-thirds of the North Carolina Research Triangle is the Durham-Chapel Hill area, where 66 of every 1,000 jobs are in tech. Here, salaries are over $94,500, while rents are the second lowest on our list at $870 a month. Big companies, including IBM and Cisco, have homes at Research Triangle Park. Companies and cities partner to encourage startups with several accelerator programs, and others, such as American Underground, based in Durham, host office space along with a Google for Entrepreneurs tech hub.

5. Boulder, Colorado
In Boulder, 70 of every 1,000 jobs are in the tech industry. Average salaries fall just shy of six figures, while rents hover at $1,168 a month. Venture capital firms in Boulder, such as Foundry Group and Techstars, focus on tech opportunities. Major companies including Twitter and Oracle have snatched up Boulder companies, and others maintain outposts here. Some tech companies that call the city home are Backflip Studios, Sphero, Alteryx, Rally Software and PivotDesk.

6. San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, California
Just north of the heart of Silicon Valley, Redwood City, San Mateo and San Francisco are home to the biggest names in tech, including Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Yelp, Salesforce, Dropbox, Yahoo, Oracle and many more. In this area, 72 of every 1,000 jobs are in technology fields, the average annual salary is our list’s second highest at over $113,000, but rents are also among the highest with a median of $1,435 a month. This area also made our list of Best Places for STEM Graduates.

7. Washington, D.C.-Arlington-Alexandria, Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia
In the metro area around the nation’s capital, about 79 of every 1,000 jobs are in tech. Venture capitalists and accelerator programs help the industry thrive, and in D.C. alone, there are over 1,000 tech startups. Last year, the mayor of Washington, D.C., unveiled an economic development initiative, Digital DC. Tech workers see salaries of over $104,000 on average, but they also pay the second-highest rents on our list at a median of $1,481 a month. Companies in the area include TrackMaven, Brazen Careerist, Silica Labs, Urgent.ly, Soundtracker, Encore Alert, Speek, EverFi, ID.me and more. These powerhouse locations also made our list of Best Places for STEM Graduates.

8. Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina
In the second North Carolina Research Triangle area on our list, 56 of every 1,000 jobs are in tech. Raleigh-Cary is ideal for tech employees looking for affordable living, with median rent at $908. The area also made our list of Best Places for STEM Graduates. Tech companies such as Red Hat call Raleigh-Cary home, while over 170 companies are based at Research Triangle Park. Nearby universities help supply a flow of dynamic workers for one of the new metro areas set to welcome Google’s high-speed fiber-optic Internet service.

9. Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, Texas
Austin, Round Rock and San Marcos in Texas make up the area affectionately dubbed “Silicon Hills.” Due to venture capital interest and a wealth of incubators and accelerators, startups thrive in the Austin area, where about 58 of every 1,000 jobs are in tech. Although the area’s tech workers see the lowest salaries on our list at just over $84,300 a year, rents are also lower at a median of $1,000 a month. The area is home to Dell, IBM, HomeAway, Yodle, Jobs2Careers, Phunware, RetailMeNot, Bazaarvoice, Main Street Hub and more. Of course, Austin also hosts the annual South by Southwest festival, which showcases new and emerging technologies.

10. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Massachusetts
Between startups and flourishing mainstays, the Boston area continues to make its mark on the tech world. Here, 57 of every 1,000 jobs are in tech, and workers can expect average salaries just over six figures. Rents are the fourth highest on our list at a median of $1,200 a month. Companies that call the Boston area home include HubSpot, Constant Contact, Wayfair, TripAdvisor, HourlyNerd, Demandware, WordStream, Bit9, Jibo, Fiksu, Bullhorn, CarGurus and more. The area also made our list of Best Places for STEM Graduates.
 
#337 ·
Salesforce receives takeover inquiry, hires investment bankers, report says
Apr 29, 2015, 12:20pm PDT UPDATED: Apr 29, 2015, 1:04pm PDT
Patrick Hoge
Reporter-San Francisco Business Times

Salesforce.com is working with financial advisers to help it field takeover offers after being approached by a potential acquirer, according to Bloomberg, which cited unnamed sources "with knowledge of the matter."

Shares of Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) leaped 12.7 percent to record high $75.38 on the New York Stock Exchange in late afternoon trading minutes before the closing bell.

The identity of the potential acquirer wasn't revealed to Bloomberg, and there was no certainty a deal would happen, Bloomberg said.

Contacted via email, Salesforce co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff declined to comment . . . .

Founded in 1999, Salesforce, the largest tech employer in San Francisco, has a market value of nearly $50 billion, which means it would be the largest software company ever purchased.

Big Salesforce rivals include Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp. and SAP all of which trail Salesforce in market share for customer relationship management technologies . . . .
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2015/04/salesforce-takeover-investment-bankers-crm.html

4 companies that could buy Salesforce
Apr 29, 2015, 2:46pm PDT UPDATED: Apr 29, 2015, 6:22pm PDT
Patrick Chu
Editor-in-Chief-San Francisco Business Times

(Salesforce founder and CEO Marc) Benioff on Wednesday attended Microsoft’s Build conference in San Francisco and tweeted photos and positive commentary about the progress the two companies had made on services arising from an alliance they announced last year.The partnership connects Salesforce's customer management applications with Microsoft's Office and Windows.

The cloud is clearly where Microsoft is investing for the future of its business, so it could grow its offerings by acquiring a company it's already working with. Salesforce has 16,000 employees, so Microsoft would be acquiring an army of cloud coders.

Nadella and Benioff highlighted just how well the two companies compliment each other when they met to pose for photo ops during the partnership announcement last May.

"The reason that these relationships work is because Microsoft’s core strategy is Windows and Office, that’s where the revenue comes from," Benioff said back then. "And Salesforce’s core strategy is our CRM apps. That’s where our revenue comes from. And we both want to grow our revenues, so we know that we need to be investing in our core and in our strategies."

It would make the most sense for Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) to buy Salesforce, Samad Samana, a research analyst with FBR Capital Markets in New York, told CNBC. Oracle would then establish itself as the leader in cloud computing, helping to fend off attacks from upstart companies like Workday . . . .

Samana said a buyer would have to pay at least a 20 to 25 percent premium on Salesforce’s stock price.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranc...ibm-salesforce-oracle-microsoft.html?page=all

The other 2: SAP and IBM
 
#338 · (Edited by Moderator)
Oracle makes by far the most sense since the two companies have been bringing their database and CRM offering into line for some time; they complement each other's weaknesses; Oracle is in a league by itself at integrating acquisitions quickly and smoothly; Ellison and Benioff are good friends (yes, they are); and Larry is not getting any younger.

Salesforce has maintained their flexibility by leasing in SF . . . .

I would guess a tax-free stock deal with substantial cash is most likely (Oracle has done that with other CRM deals). Of course, an agreement on price has to be reached and antitrust issues addressed.
 
#339 ·
^^Buzzfeed says it isn't Oracle

Salesforce did buy the 50 Fremont tower in San Francisco for $640 million, the largest office deal in the city last year. It is across the street from the 2 properties they are leasing and I'm fairly sure they can't get out of the leases either unless they can find a replacement tenant (possible since the demand from office space in SF is insane right now).

My bet is it's Microsoft if the rumor is even true. They and Salesforce already have a joint venture and they want to get into the cloud a lot more than Larry Ellison wants to swallow his pride and admit he can't do it "organically".
 
#340 ·
Entirely possible but won't work as well; some basic s/w changes will have to be made and historic vendor and support changes will have to be made.

Larry has no problem with admitting that internal development has failed; his preference in the first place is to buy established products with satisfied customer bases and use his marketing muscle to make-them profitable. Oracle can and does cut off internal projects ruthlessly. That's why there are 40k contractors in India.
 
#344 ·
Oracle would make it easier to integrate but Larry WILL NOT overspend and still believes that Salesforce is over-priced.

MS may be desperate enough to buy (for stock and cash). But with Salesforce having no current earnings, it takes a hit to earnings for years and counts on its (relatively weak) corporate sales channels to come up big. It's definitely more of a gamble.
 
#345 ·
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