What's going on?

Salesforce reported better-than-expected earnings on Wednesday, as global firms turned to the cloud giant to get their projects � and distracted homebound teams � back on track.

What does this mean?

Kiss goodbye to those two-hour Candy Crush marathons you�ve been enjoying: more and more companies around the world are relaunching ventures that the pandemic brought grinding to a halt. That led to an uptick in demand for Salesforce�s products last quarter, with the company posting a 23% jump in revenue compared to the same time in 2020. Salesforce upped its earnings forecast for the rest of the year too, and it might be right to feel good about the future: whether everyone keeps working from home or piles back into the office, Salesforce�s bottom line stands to benefit.

Why should I care?

The bigger picture: Picking up the Slack.
Salesforce hasn�t been taking anything for granted, mind you: the company has just completed its $28 billion acquisition of collaboration platform Slack, which it expects to grow sales by more than 25% a year going forward. That�s not beyond the realms of possibility, especially since two of its latest acquisitions � software firms Mulesoft and Tableau � notched up revenue growth of 24% last quarter alone. But if it�s going to have any hope of staving off rival collaboration players like Microsoft and Zoom, it�ll certainly need to make good on that promise�

For markets: This means cloud war.
Salesforce is actually the second-biggest business software company in the world right now, trailing behind Europe�s SAP. But it might not stay that way at this rate: SAP�s revenue only climbed 3% last quarter, which might partly be why its stock is only up 14% so far this year versus Salesforce�s 24%.