Salesforce.com to buy business-software maker Demandware, for $2.8 bn

US customer relationship management and cloud computing company Salesforce.com Inc yesterday struck a deal to buy business-software maker Demandware Inc, for about $2.8 billion.

The transaction, which is Salesforce's largest acquisition to date, is expected to close by 31 July 2016.

Salesforce is offering to pay $75.00 per share in cash, a 56.3 per cent premium to Demandware's Tuesday closing price of $47.99.

The acquisition is expected to increase Salesforce's FY17 total revenue by approximately $100 million to $120 million.

Massachusetts-based Demandware is a cloud commerce software company catering mainly to world's leading retailers including Design Within Reach, Lands' End, L'Oreal and Marks & Spencer.

''Demandware is an amazing company - the global cloud leader in the multi-billion dollar digital commerce market," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, Salesforce. "With Demandware, Salesforce will be well positioned to deliver the future of commerce as part of our Customer Success Platform and create yet another billion dollar cloud."

"Demandware and Salesforce share the same passionate focus on customer success," said Tom Ebling, CEO, Demandware. "Becoming part of Salesforce will accelerate our vision to empower the world's leading brands with the most innovative digital commerce solutions that enable them to connect 1:1 with customers across any channel."

Worldwide spending on digital commerce platforms is expected to grow at over 14 per cent annually, reaching $8.544 billion by 2020, Salesforce said citing research firm Gartner.