Salesforce.com, Inc. is refusing to comment on a story published by The Information that claims it’s negotiating to buy sales automation solution provider SteelBrick Inc. for $600 million.

Salesforce put out the usual statement issued by big vendors when such rumors surface, saying it doesn’t like to comment on “rumors and speculation”. Meanwhile, SteelBrick’s chief marketing officer Will Weigler also refused to confirm or deny any talks had taken place.

“We do not comment on rumors,” Wiegler said, before adding that: “SteelBrick is doing great as you can see with the record growth, $48M financing, and Platinum Plus Salesforce partnership we recently announced. We’re always working with all of our customers and partners on improving our products and services to best serve joint customers.”

SteelBrick made its name thanks to a software suite called Quote-to-Cash that offers a number of sell-side applications, including Configure Price Quote, analytics and billing features. The software is designed for enterprises to help them accurately price deals that have many aspects to them and can become quite complex. Essentially, the software simplifies the sales process by automatically putting together the right product offering and financial terms of the contract, while also taking care of paperwork like contracts and invoicing.

The Quote-to-Cash market is growing fast, with Gartner Inc. recently saying it will be worth $41 billion a year by 2018, which is enough to explain Salesforce’s interest.

If Salesforce did buy SteelBrick, the latter firm’s technology would help to bolster one of its most prevalent use cases – that of managing sales from end-to-end. The two firms already enjoy very close ties. Salesforce recently decided to take part in a $48 million investment round in SteelBrick back in October, and the smaller company’s software already runs natively on Salesforce’s platform, with its Quotes & Orders app currently the most popular third-party offering, according to Salesforce’s AppExchange popularity rank.

By acquiring SteelBrick, Salesforce will hope to boost growth in its Sales Cloud business, which has traditionally been the firm’s biggest revenue driver. Salesforce’s most recent acquisitions have been more focused on its analytics and marketing businesses.

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