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Zendesk CEO calls Freshdesk a freaking rip off - Freshdesk responds

ripoffornot.org

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Re: Zendesk CEO calls Freshdesk a freaking rip off - Freshdesk responds

#111

Post by diamondhead »

If the Hacker News people need a guide to notice how FreshDesk guys are motivated to draw the attention of people by making bullshit, I'm going to stop reading HN. Shame on you the readers voted this article up.

This is completely bullshit. If you take a look at the website of Freshdesk, you'll see that they stole the design of Zendesk. They probably did it to draw the attention of Zendesk and gather some angry tweets that can be used in such a way you see.

This is the last article I've seen in HN. I'll never enter this website again. Seriously, enough bullshit for a coder.

Time to leave HN alone with the embarrassing promoters and gossip girls.

Re: Zendesk CEO calls Freshdesk a freaking rip off - Freshdesk responds

#112

Post by Nrndr »

shakes wrote: post #93
true_religion wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The full statement is: > Passing judgement on Product innovation based on the founder’s nationality reflects poorly on the intellectual ability of the person making the judgement. They are complaining that nationalist insults or racist insults make the speaker look like an idiot. Is this ridiculous, heavy-handed, and unfair? Perhaps it is simply reflective of the fact that current culture looks down on racists.

Look, I hate racism. I grew up the midwest and saw the terrible things that racism can do to a culture. But my argument is, what does Freshdesk gain from going back and forth with @cloudgroupsyd? Beyond that, @cloudgroupsyd apologized but still they chose to bring up this quote to rabble-rouse and make personal attacks against him. We all say stupid stuff, we all make mistakes. Especially in this world of 140 charact…

He didn't apologized.

Re: Zendesk CEO calls Freshdesk a freaking rip off - Freshdesk responds

#113

Post by teyc »

deskamess wrote: post #107
idspispopd wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for pointing out this obvious PR campaign. The whole point of highlighting this exchange, the surrounding publicity, the custom url/etc is to raise the profile and get people to pick sides to generate discussion. This PR technique is as old as the sex tape and about exhausted as it gets. It's the online equivalent of reading "britney spears vs lindsay lohan".

If you want to call it a PR campaign that is fine. However, lets not forget that this campaign was made possible by the statements and responses from ZenDesk and an associate.

This is what makes it masterful. It is a campaign in any sense of the word because he worked his ass off on this site.

However, it doesn't detract the truth of what he said. In fact, even as I deconstruct it, I still find myself siding with FreshDesk. Mind control at its best.

Re: Zendesk CEO calls Freshdesk a freaking rip off - Freshdesk responds

#114

Post by teyc »

te_chris wrote: post #110
teyc wrote: post #74

HackerNews readers, watch and learn. I'm about deconstruct what is going on. Anybody who brushes off FreshDesk because of its Indian roots is doing FreshDesk a favour. This is a sharp mind at work and it is lethal. FreshDesk is executing the standard modus operandi of upstart against an incumbent. Jobs is a master at it (I'm Apple I'm Microsoft), Calacanis too (remember the SEO controversy, and then the Angel controv…

Ben Kepes is a New Zealander, f'n Australians....;)

I was referring to Christian Marsh, who has "syd" in his twitter moniker.

Re: Zendesk CEO calls Freshdesk a freaking rip off - Freshdesk responds

#115

Post by chairface »

shakes wrote: post #96
mfjordvald wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth did you get to freshdesk making personal attacks based on this page? I'm gobsmacked you managed to so severely misread the whole thing. The entire point of the page is to point out personal attacks made against them and then respond to the rip-off comment. Supposedly they did make a decent product already.

My point is, they respond to the personal attacks by making personal attacks against the people who made them. An eye for an eye. In my opinion, they sunk down to the level of the people who were criticizing them. Making a good product speaks for itself, you don't have to have this petty back and forth.

Where are the personal attacks on that page? I see none.

Re: Zendesk CEO calls Freshdesk a freaking rip off - Freshdesk responds

#116

Post by j45 »

tingletech wrote: post #102
j45 wrote: post #21

This might be a good lesson in don't feed the monster so it gets more attention. When the big guy talks smack about a presumably smaller guy, it's because they're threatened? Who cares if their pricing is a rip off, it's good for Zendesk if Freshdesk is a ripoff, because no one will use it. By saying and doing nothing Freshdesk could spiral into a blackhole of me never hearing about it. Instead Zendesk put Freshdesk…

>Who cares if their pricing is a rip off yea, I read it that way at first but I don't think that is what they are saying. "Knockoff" is probably what they meant.

Fair, but we could find things zendesk is a knock off of, no?

Maybe some folks start to believe their own legend too much. Originality and innovation is far rarer than we'd like to think.

Re: Zendesk CEO calls Freshdesk a freaking rip off - Freshdesk responds

#118

Post by chairface »

diamondhead wrote: post #87
mmaunder wrote: post #78

Regarding the initial dispute over trademark: The "desk" part of the name is 'descriptive' and so isn't the strong part of each trademark. The "zen/fresh" parts are arbitrary so are the strong part of each mark. These are distinct, so I don't think there is a valid claim to trademark infringement here. One could argue that "desk" is 'suggestive' in trademark law which makes it a bit stronger, but I don't think that w…

It's not all about a name. Freshdesk is an embarrassing copy of Zendesk.

A lot of successful products are copies of something else, and more power to them. The company I work for* had a competitor make an "embarrassing copy" of our flagship product, and they managed to get acquired because of it. But you know what? I don't hold it against them, in fact, congrats to them. If anything it validates the space we're in.

* I'm deliberately not mentioning the company or product by name, because I don't particularly want to start a subthread about this situation - the particulars would detract from the point I'm making.

Re: Zendesk CEO calls Freshdesk a freaking rip off - Freshdesk responds

#119

Post by pelemele »

j45 wrote: post #43
j45 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally comments about someone's perceived race (I didn't know there was more than one human race) is reserved for idiots who get their education about the world from tv. The indian cowboy slur against Freshdesk is beyond ignorant. Especially for a technie. They're usually pretty good for researching. Maybe Christian Marth should learn indians invented counting, the pentium chip, hotmail, fiber optics and lots of ot…

Thanks downvoters, your hatering feeds my loving. :)

Wikipedia: Smith came up with the idea for anonymous web-based email in 1995, and worked with his colleague at Apple, Bhatia, to found the company.

Re: Zendesk CEO calls Freshdesk a freaking rip off - Freshdesk responds

#120

Post by sunir »

ecaron wrote: post #50

As much as I'd like to side with the guy getting picked on (Freshdesk), Zendesk is completely right. Ignoring the interface and naming similarities, you can't complain about ZenDesk on Twitter without multiple Freshdesk spammers bombarding you. Sure there's nothing illegal about it, but they're obnoxious with the "a customer of a rival is complaining, I MUST CONVERT THEM!" concept. (I called them a rip-off of Zendesk…

In PR right and wrong have different meanings that true and false. Mikkel was wrong here because he acknowledged, supported, and then fueled a competing idea in the market helping establish in some small way Freshdesk.

When you are leading, don't elevate small fry onto the same media frame as you by debating with them. You just give them (potentially) free access to your entire expensively earned PR channel for free.

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