Twitter shares tumble as last suitor Salesforce rules out bid

“The boss of Salesforce.com has ruled out his company as a bidder for Twitter, all but bringing an end to attempts to find a buyer for the struggling internet company,” Richard Waters, Hannah Kuchler and James Fontanella-Khan report for The Financial Times. “The US cloud software company had been left as the most likely bidder last week, after other potential acquirers, including Google and Walt Disney, decided not to pursue a deal.”

“‘In this case we’ve walked away. It wasn’t the right fit for us,’ Marc Benioff, chief executive of Salesforce, said in an interview with the FT,” Waters, Kuchler and Fontanella-Khan report. “Twitter’s shares tumbled more than 6 per cent on the news. Salesforce shares were up more than 6 per cent to $75.04 in early afternoon New York.”

“Salesforce had been the only serious contender left in the race after Twitter opened itself to takeover offers, two people briefed on the sale process said,” Waters, Kuchler and Fontanella-Khan report. “However, Twitter’s advisers are still seeking other potential bidders, those people added. The sale process is virtually dead, said a person close to Twitter’s senior management.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Twitter’s certainly has value and is worth something, just not what they’re asking, obviously. Nobody sane is going to buy Twitter as it exists today for $30 billion.

As we wrote last month: Twitter is one of the very best places, if not the best, for breaking news. It’s got many other problems, of course (organization, priority, conversation coherence, rampant inanity, etc.), but it is good for breaking news… We’d love to see what Apple could do with Twitter in terms of usability. A vast, ready-made social network might be just the thing to teach Apple all they need to know about the subject, which isn’t much (see Ping and Connect, for two examples).

SEE ALSO:
Twitter moves closer to sale, suitors said to include Google and Salesforce – September 23, 2016
Twitter suspends 235,000 more accounts over extremism – August 18, 2016
Twitter in talks with Apple to launch Apple TV app for NFL Thursday Night Football live streaming – August 15, 2016
Twitter users now trust social media influencers nearly as much as their friends – May 11, 2016
So far, Apple Support on Twitter has responded to nearly 100 tweets per hour – March 4, 2016