Salesforce.com, which makes America’s dominant sales-tracking software, agreed to buy Tableau Software in an all-stock deal valued at $15.3 billion that it said will help give customers more ways to analyze data.
The takeover will mark Salesforce’s largest deal to date, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Co-chief executive officers Marc Benioff and Keith Block have been chasing new markets to reach an annual revenue goal of as much as $28 billion by fiscal 2023. Mr. Benioff has helped Salesforce increase revenue at a rapid clip by acquiring more than 60 companies in 20 years.
The deal, if approved, would be “absolutely transformative” for Salesforce, Wedbush Securities analyst Steve Koenig said. The acquisition further intensifies Salesforce’s rivalry with Microsoft Corp., Mr. Koenig said. “This adds more urgency for public cloud vendors to lead the analytics market into a new era.”
Tableau will remain headquartered in Seattle and will continue to be led by CEO Adam Selipsky, a former Amazon.com Inc. executive who has been transitioning Tableau’s software tools to cloud-based subscriptions. With Tableau, Salesforce will be able to help companies tap into data they have, make smarter decisions and boost innovation. IDC projects worldwide spending on technologies and services that enable digital transformation to reach almost $2 trillion in 2022, according to a statement from the companies Monday.
Tableau software quickly turns raw data into easily understandable dashboards and charts. The company has been broadening its product line to include data cleanup and machine learning tools, enabling it to compete in the wider data-warehousing business. It has more than 86,000 customers, including Verizon Communications Inc. and Netflix Inc.
A motorcyclist’s helmet couldn’t save him after he was struck by lightning while riding on I-95
A North Carolina motorcyclist died Sunday afternoon when he was struck by a lightning bolt and then crashed on a Florida highway.
The 45-year-old man from Charlotte, N.C., who has not yet been identified, was hit just before 3 p.m. At the time, he was driving on I-95 in Volusia County, Fla., about 50 miles from Orlando, the Florida Highway Patrol said in a statement Sunday.
An off-duty Virginia state trooper who witnessed the strike said the lightning bolt’s impact caused the motorcyclist to veer off the road. The 2018 Harley Davidson flipped, throwing the driver from bike, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
A photo posted on the Florida Highway Patrol’s official Twitter page showed the biker’s shattered helmet with cracks and burns from the bolt.
It’s unclear whether the cause of death was the lightning strike or the subsequent crash.
Since 2016, there have been 10 motorcycle-related lightning deaths, John Jensenius of the National Lightning Safety Council said, although only 10 percent of people struck by lightning are killed. (In several of the 10 cases, Mr. Jensenius noted that the rider was not on the bike when he or she was struck.)
Over the last three decades, the United States has averaged 43 lightning deaths annually, according to the National Weather Service’s Storm Data. More recently, since 2009, the average has dropped to 27, making the odds of being struck in a given year 1 in more than 1.2 million.
Missouri’s sole abortion provider can stay open for now, judge rules
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A St. Louis judge has ordered that Missouri’s sole outpatient abortion provider — the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis — be allowed to keep its doors open for now.
However, in his order granting a preliminary injunction Monday, St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Michael Stelzer made clear he disagreed with some of the main arguments made by Planned Parenthood’s attorneys.
He ordered the state health department to officially deny or grant renewal of the clinic’s license by June 21, in order for the clinic to appeal the decision to the state’s administrative hearing commission.
The clinic’s license lapsed May 31, while its application for a new license was pending. The clinic sued three days before the old license expired after the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services made clear it would not consider its application without interviewing seven doctors who had provided treatment at the clinic as part of an investigation into patient care.
Five of the seven physicians have declined to be interviewed. Planned Parenthood has said it cannot compel the doctors to comply with DHSS’s investigation because they are not employees, but rather contracted through teaching hospitals and medical schools. Judge Stelzer ruled that testimony from four of the physicians was irrelevant to what the court was trying to decide.
Also in the nation …
Opioid manufacturer Insys Therapeutics filed for bankruptcy protection Monday, days after agreeing to pay $225 million to settle a federal investigation into the marketing practices for its powerful fentanyl painkiller. … The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to federal regulation of gun silencers Monday, just days after a gunman used one in a shooting rampage that killed 12 people in Virginia. … A woman is recovering after being rescued by police from the basement of a Niagara Falls, N.Y., home, where officers said she was chained. … The morning after manufacturers Raytheon and United Technologies announced a blockbuster merger that would create a giant in the aerospace and defense sectors, President Donald Trump said he is “a little bit concerned” about the deal’s anti-competitive potential. … Authorities have identified 29-year-old Kiersten Symone Smith as the woman who was killed when a crane fell on a Dallas apartment building Sunday amid severe thunderstorms that also uprooted mature trees and left thousands without power across the city.
First Published: June 11, 2019, 6:17 a.m.