Microsoft Reportedly Considering Bid For San Francisco's Salesforce.com

SAN FRNCISCO (CBS SF) – Microsoft is possibly looking at bidding for San Francisco-based cloud computing company Salesforce.com, according to a published report.

Bloomberg reported Tuesday the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant is evaluating a bid after another company approached Salesforce for a possible takeover, sources told the financial news service.

Last month, Oracle emerged as a possible company to takeover Salesforce.

People with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg that there are no talks between the two companies and no deal is imminent, but Microsoft has long been expected to compete for Salesforce if the company was ever put up for sale. Both companies declined to comment.

Salesforce, co-founded in 1999 by CEO Marc Benioff, has become a leading company in CRM (customer relationship management) software and cloud computing. The company has a market value of almost $50 billion. Meanwhile, Microsoft has a market value of $385 billion.

In the wake of Bloomberg's report, trading of Salesforce shares was briefly halted. Shares of Salesforce were up 1.6 percent to $72.75 at the close of trading Tuesday.

According to USA Today, Microsoft has made two major acquisitions in recent years. In 2013, Microsoft acquired Nokia's cellphone business for $7 billion and acquired video game Minecraft for $2.5 billion last year.