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So why the oddly worded shut down message on their website? Why not announce the acquisition?

steveklabnik 16y ago
Maybe they bought it for the team, not the product. If the product is then getting killed, people that use the site wouldn't care why: they just care it's going away.
- pierrefar 16y ago
  Some users might be happy to know that the service got bought out. Take it in reverse: if they were closing down due to personal illness or death or something else horrible, would you still argue that the users don't care? I doubt it. Customers are human after all and care.
hugh3 16y ago
Hmmm. I'm going to assume that the existing etacts service will, in fact, be shut down, and that the team will work on implementing the same (or similar, or perhaps completely unrelated) functionality within Salesforce's products. If the shutdown message made reference to the fact that they're being acquired by Salesforce, then perhaps users (who may not necessarily read their emails all that carefully) would assume that the existing service would be continuing under the Salesforce banner. Then the etacts folks would have had to spend the next N weeks correcting that particular misconception by answering a bunch of emails from users going "Waaah I don't want to be in Salesforce" or "But I already have a Salesforce account, how do I integrate the two" and "wtf is Salesforce I tried to log in and it didn't work". On reflection this makes sense.
- pierrefar 16y ago
  They could have easily said we have been acquired and we are shutting down. No ambiguity.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    Yep, they could have. They could have also listed exactly what they had for breakfast. But do their customers care?
    - bradly 16y ago
      > do their customers care? Yes.
    - bvi 16y ago
      As an Etacs user, yes, I care very much as to whether they are shutting down or being acquired.
  - benatkin 16y ago
    I don't think customers would notice, and if they noticed, I'm not sure they would believe it, and if they believed it, they might act delusional about it. In other words, I agree with hugh3 that it may have been wise for them to do it this way. I also think there's a certain elegance in delivering news that is actionable without news that isn't actionable. It's kind of like the [ANN] messages in user group mailing lists. Sometimes I put on my action hat and am likely to see things as being action-related even when they aren't. I doubt I'm the only one.

Maybe they bought it for the team, not the product. If the product is then getting killed, people that use the site wouldn't care why: they just care it's going away.

pierrefar 16y ago
Some users might be happy to know that the service got bought out. Take it in reverse: if they were closing down due to personal illness or death or something else horrible, would you still argue that the users don't care? I doubt it. Customers are human after all and care.

hugh3 16y ago

Hmmm. I'm going to assume that the existing etacts service will, in fact, be shut down, and that the team will work on implementing the same (or similar, or perhaps completely unrelated) functionality within Salesforce's products. If the shutdown message made reference to the fact that they're being acquired by Salesforce, then perhaps users (who may not necessarily read their emails all that carefully) would assume that the existing service would be continuing under the Salesforce banner. Then the etacts folks would have had to spend the next N weeks correcting that particular misconception by answering a bunch of emails from users going "Waaah I don't want to be in Salesforce" or "But I already have a Salesforce account, how do I integrate the two" and "wtf is Salesforce I tried to log in and it didn't work". On reflection this makes sense.

pierrefar 16y ago
They could have easily said we have been acquired and we are shutting down. No ambiguity.
- hugh3 16y ago
  Yep, they could have. They could have also listed exactly what they had for breakfast. But do their customers care?
  - bradly 16y ago
    > do their customers care? Yes.
  - bvi 16y ago
    As an Etacs user, yes, I care very much as to whether they are shutting down or being acquired.
- benatkin 16y ago
  I don't think customers would notice, and if they noticed, I'm not sure they would believe it, and if they believed it, they might act delusional about it. In other words, I agree with hugh3 that it may have been wise for them to do it this way. I also think there's a certain elegance in delivering news that is actionable without news that isn't actionable. It's kind of like the [ANN] messages in user group mailing lists. Sometimes I put on my action hat and am likely to see things as being action-related even when they aren't. I doubt I'm the only one.