[jmedwards]

The whole thing is completely overblown (intentionally so and calculated, of course, by Freshdesk) and was very unnecessary to begin with (on Zendesk's part).

As an Indian-started helpdesk software company ourselves, the 'Indian cowboy' comment raised our brows a bit. It was very unfortunate. But then I realised it was said by a relative nobody. That didn't stop it being used to inflame the situation, though.

Disclosure: I'm from Kayako.com, competitor, the original Original helpdesk and bemused bystander ;-)

[adriarichards]

We all should realize it's Twitter, home of public flame wars.

Agreed. That comment was from a bystander and Freshdesk pulled it into the story to sensationalize.

Yes, I remember back in 2005 when there was Kayako, Cerberus, Activecampaign, Request Tracker and PHP Ticket. All required self-hosting of files and maintenance. A cloud based helpdesk just wasn't an option.

In the end, customers will select technology that fits their needs. Those needs may be completely technical in nature but more and more, customers are making decisions about technology vendors based on the ethics and relationship with that company.

Nice to see you contribute this thread.

[jmedwards]

Ditto! I seem to bump into you everywhere. The Internet is a small place.

> customers are making decisions about technology vendors based on the ethics and relationship with that company

Indeed. In such a crowded space with plenty of the same feature-wise, there is no doubt that the personality of a company (in this case, conveyed over social media) is going to play this kind of role.

PS: We were doing SaaS in 2005 :-)