
Why we are not afraid of Microsoft - shankarganesh
http://blog.freshdesk.com/why-we-are-not-afraid-of-microsoft/
======
nemesisj
Is there any otherwise-vanilla SaaS out there that generates more controversy
than Freshdesk (at least among the HN readership)?

Already on this article (8 comments posted as I write this) we have a FUD
comment saying their post is "smug" and their customers should be worried, and
then another talking about how you need to "be careful" about criticising the
company because their employees victimised the commenter by "down voting them
in groups".

Add to this the backdrop of ridiculous comments by Zendesk founder calling
them a ripoff, and just the general FUD espoused by almost everyone whenever
an Indian tech company is in the picture, and it's a bit sad.

We don't use Freshdesk, although we're considering moving from Zendesk to them
due to some missing features, and I'm not Indian, but I really do think it's
interesting how this company is just constantly and vaguely looked down upon
by people who should know better.

FD seem to be scrappy, they're growing quickly, their product looks good, they
give discounts to startups, and they just happen to be based in India - what's
not to like?

~~~
mcphilip
I read HN daily and this is my first encounter with Freshdesk.

>FD seem to be scrappy, they're growing quickly, their product looks good,
they give discounts to startups, and they just happen to be based in India -
what's not to like?

Regardless of the quality of their offering, I'm personally turned off by the
David vs. Goliath click bait being my introduction to the company. Maybe
that's unfair, but so it goes.

~~~
unreal37
I found it to be a great response. A competitor gets acquired, a news article
says your company will be put out of business by it, and voila! An opportunity
to rise above it.

And yes, when was the last time Microsoft put somebody out of business?

------
dictum
Microsoft didn't have to acquire anything to compete with most SaaS
businesses:

They have Excel.

Small businesses have tighter budgets, but often the owner is the person doing
certain tasks that in a big corporation would be given to interns. Because
they do the work themselves, they're more open to try new software to improve
their workflow. They're willing to pay $50 every month to be able to do
something in a more efficient or enjoyable way, even though they could pay
$500 (a fictional figure) once and buy Office or some established software to
manage some aspect of their business, but feel miserable doing it.

However, many small business owners, after researching the competition, decide
to do as the big guys are doing, and go with bloated, clunky software in hopes
of eventually becoming big too.

That's why, it seems to me, it's relatively easy to run a simple SaaS with
200-500k yearly revenue, but hard to scale it to millions.

* * *

The target audience for this post is probably Freshdesk customers, not me. If
I were a Freshdesk customer, I'd me more confident if the reasons listed were
a better customer support, better user experience, being likely to stay in
business for longer... instead, they went with "the competition is crappy and
slow to act".

~~~
girishm
"If I were a Freshdesk customer, I'd me more confident if the reasons listed
were a better customer support, better user experience, being likely to stay
in business for longer..."

Fair points, but our existing customers already know about our user experience
and customer support. And if I am going to talk about that, it is not going to
be very credible anyway as I am biased :) But a quick review of our Google
apps marketplace review will tell you that's exactly what our customers love
about us.

------
mattmanser
Dynamics CRM requires consultants to install, servers to run, etc. etc.

It's bizarre anyone would say something so colossally stupid and be so
ignorant of reality to say an add-on to an expensive and complicated CRM
system will put standalone offerings out of business unless they were a
Dynamics consultant.

Oh, Gene Marks _is_ a Dynamics consultant.

No news here, no news in the original article, it's all just advertising.

~~~
vtbassmatt
Consultants - probably. Servers - nope, not for about 6 years, since CRM
Online shipped in January 2008.
[http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=252780](http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=252780)

Your bottom-line takeaway is spot-on.

------
goldenkey
In the face of certain despair, it's humorous that Freshdesk pulls off the
"I'm so smug, come join us" pitch. If I was a Freshdesk customer, I'd be a
little worried about the political pow-wow being played. It's quite clear that
Freshdesk is looking to get acquired by Microsoft. One of the prerequisites is
to smacktack the ol' Microsoft 'legacy' and then whistle dixie.

~~~
slowdown
Also, watchout when you bad mouth them on HN, they use shady tactics to
downvote comments written against them (I was a victim once; their employees
downvoted me in groups). I don't trust this company nor their employees at all
- In fact, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that this blog post was
posted by one of their employees and the blog post is just a glorified landing
page.

    
    
        "We're not scared of Microsoft, so signup right now"

~~~
pedalpete
What makes you so sure you were downvoted by freshdesk employees and not just
HNers who thought your comment was ineffective at portraying a useful point?

note: I am not nor have ever been a freshdesk employee

------
CmonDev
First sign of being not afraid is creating "I am not afraid" blog posts.

~~~
blumkvist
/s

------
gafads
The hubris in this post is on par with the classic tales of the Greek gods.
Microsoft may not sink Freshdesk, but Freshdesk may sink Freshdesk.

------
Edmond
Unless the blog post has been updated before I read it I find it difficult to
understand the hostility being expressed towards FreshDesk.

Someone wrote them off as being good as dead because a competitor was acquired
by MS, they wrote a rebuttal, what is wrong with that?

------
awicklander
I have to say, this HN thread is super confusing to me. There are plenty of
good points in this article, none of which come off as smug to me.

The fact of the matter is that the helpdesk software market is huge, and the
notion that there isn't enough room for multiple companies to succeed in it is
just wrong headed.

Very rarely, but especially with niche software, is there ever only one
winner. Usually there's lots of room for many companies to succeed.

As a happy Freshdesk customer I pretty much agree with everything written in
this post, and think they'll be just fine.

------
dasil003
It's not smugness, it's sensationalism, and it's a valid PR tactic. I think
the old saying "there's no such thing as bad publicity" applies in spades
here. Look at the controversy in this thread: some people think it's bad, some
think it's good, but the number of people with Freshdesk on the brain has
jumped by an order of magnitude—if half of them are turned off it's still a
net win.

------
brentm
Slightly off topic but what is better about Zendesk?

I've been using Freshdesk for a few years and originally chose it because the
price was so much less. To me the major benefits of Zendesk appear to be a
better mobile experience and a json api (vs Freshdesk's XML). Out of those 2
thing the XML api has been the more annoying to deal with.

It looks Zendesk may have dropped their prices a little and may be worth
reconsidering.

~~~
girishm
Freshdesk has had both XML and JSON APIs from day 1. Maybe it was not so
obvious as the documentation was done for XML and it was probably assumed that
since it is exactly similar for json it was not required. Thanks for the
feedback. We will fix the docs.

~~~
xtracto
Hey, a bit late to the thread but I wanted to ask a question about your
service (I couldn't find a "send private message" button in HN):

My company is evaluating several Helpdesk systems (both SaaS and Open Source).
FreshDesk is one of those we have in mind. However I would like to know how
possible is it to "tweak" Freshdesk to meet our needs.

For example, being able to add HTML elements (forms) or "dashboards" made by
us would be a plus. Also, how "mature" are your APIs? (i.e. what % of the
functionality can be accessed via API?).

Basically, we need to use a HelpDesk/Ticketing/CRM system, but must tailor it
to our business need which is more on the financial side of things (we are
looking to make the HelpDesk system our one-stop-panel for managing).

is there anyone @ your company I can contact to discuss this more in private?

Thanks a lot!

~~~
saurabh_p
Hi,

Thanks for your interest in Freshdesk. If you can email me:
saurabh@freshdesk.com, I will be glad to get on a call, understand your
requirements and take the discussion further.

Best Regards, Saurabh Prabhuzantye

------
radmuzom
Such kind of blog posts are best written a year or two, where you have
evidence that Microsoft will not be able to kill your business. In fact, I
hope it happens and wish you all the best that your business grows and
thrives.

Otherwise, no one really cares whether you are afraid of Microsoft or not.

------
jagermo
I'm always wondering why journalists "kill" everything. There is room for more
than one player - in nearly every market.

------
wudf
I see now why the moderation on hn prefers titles that match the original
article.

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mehwoot
So brave of them.

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tosseraccount
Nobody is anymore.

