Salesforce-Microsoft?

This piece was originally posted on April 30th, 2015 and is being republished below.

Amid the speculation of a merger between Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) and salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE: CRM), some analysts were looking at Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) as a potential suitor for Salesforce.

The rumors were based reports that Salesforce had hired financial advisers “to help it field takeover offers after being approached by a potential acquirer,” according to a Bloomberg report.

What's Wall Street Think?

Citigroup analyst Walter H. Pritchard commented, “Such an acquisition would make Microsoft newly relevant to developers, in our view, given the importance of CRM in the front-end application ecosystem," and that if Salesforce was in play, “Microsoft could be the most likely suitor."

Related Link: S&P Capital IQ Comments On Salesforce M&A Rumors

Wedbush's Steve Koenig, meanwhile, thought that with Salesforce's deteriorating business fundamentals, the time may be optimal for a sale. Koenig, however, did not commit on whether a deal would take place.

JMP Securities analyst Patrick Walravens, lastly, recently noted several reasons for Microsoft to acquire Salesforce, including how Microsoft wanted a larger presence in the cloud and that the two companies already had an existing partnership dating back to May 2014.

Shares of Salesforce, which have a market capitalization of $46.87 billion, spiked Wednesday amid the news, reaching a high of $78.30. The stock had risen over 38 percent during the past 12 months and recently traded at $71.42, down 4.33 percent.

Microsoft Corporation recently traded at $49.17, up 0.22 percent.