Salesforce.com Inc. announced today that it’s making some key leadership changes and acquiring the industry-specific cloud and mobile software provider Vlocity Inc. for about $1.33 billion.

The company, which sells customer relationship management software to enterprises, said its co-Chief Executive Officer Keith Block (pictured) is stepping down from the role. His departure means that Marc Benioff is now Salesforce’s sole CEO and chairman, though Block will stay on in an advisory role for the next 12 months.

Block joined Salesforce in 2013 following a 26-year stint at Oracle Corp. He became the company’s operating chief in 2016 before being named as co-CEO alongside Benioff in August 2018. At the time it was said that Block’s background in growth and operations would serve to complement Benioff’s innovation and vision.

“It’s been my greatest honor to lead the team with Marc that has more than quadrupled Salesforce from $4 billion of revenue when I joined in 2013 to over $17 billion last year,” Block said in a statement. “We are now a global enterprise company, focused on industries, and have an ecosystem that is the envy of the industry.”

The reason for Block’s departure wasn’t clear, and his relatively short tenure in the top spot might suggest something didn’t work out. But the fact he’s staying on in an advisory capacity for the next year implies that he’s still on good terms with both Benioff and Salesforce’s board of directors, said Pund-IT Inc. analyst Charles King.

“It may simply be that Benioff and the board decided that Salesforce would benefit with a single, centralized leader,” King said. “It’s also possible that Block has been contacted by other companies looking for a CEO and this approach provides him the space to consider those offers. Given the ongoing turmoil in global markets, it’s not a bad time to make this sort of announcement.”

The timing may not be all that great for Benioff however, at least not on a personal level as he has previously hinted that he has plans to retire at some point, said Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller.

“Those plans are now on hold for Benioff,” Mueller said.

Block’s departure came as Salesforce announced its intention to acquire Vlocity in a deal that’s set to close by the end of the second quarter.

Vlocity is a key Salesforce partner that’s focused on creating industry-specific functionality and processes for the Salesforce platform. The idea is that Vlocity takes care of all of the customizations in Salesforce’s underlying platform that companies would otherwise have to do themselves. Those customizations include things such as problem handling and workflow and product configuration.

Vlocity Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Innovation Officer Rip Gerber appeared on SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio theCUBE last November, discussing his company in depth:

“It is important for our customers to have products that speak the language of their industries,” Salesforce said in a statement. “Vlocity’s feature set will continue to enhance and complement Salesforce’s industry capabilities and product knowledge, open up new industry capabilities built on the Salesforce platform and provide customers with even more tools and expert guidance to digitally transform.”

Mueller told SiliconANGLE he was a bit surprised by the Vlocity acquisition, which he said is yet another example of Salesforce feting its ecosystem.

“While this serves Salesforce from an applications perspective very well, it defeats the idea of developing an ecosystem of viable, fast growing companies on the Salesforce platform,” he said.

The announcements followed Salesforce’s fourth-quarter financial results, which easily beat market expectations.

Salesforce reported a profit before certain costs such as stock compensation of 66 cents per share on revenue of $4.85 billion, up 35% from a year ago. Wall Street had forecast a 55-cent profit on revenue of $4.75 billion. Salesforce’s full year revenue came to $17.1 billion, up 29% from a year ago.

For the first quarter, Salesforce said it’s expecting revenue of between $4.875 billion and $4.885 billion, just ahead of Wall Street’s $4.84 billion estimate.

Photo: Salesforce