Cisco Snubs SalesCrunch After Start-up’s Tender Offer to Acquire WebEx

With No Formal Response, Cisco Purchases Google AdWords Aimed At SalesCrunch Customers

NEW YORK (April 16, 2012) — In what began as an honest attempt to get Cisco’s shareholders to seriously consider our tender offer, SalesCrunch may have inadvertently started a feud with the networking giant.

It has been three weeks since SalesCrunch issued its public tender offer to acquire WedbEx and while no formal response was issued to SalesCrunch, one media outlet claimed to have received a statement from Cisco’s PR department stating: “This is a cute publicity stunt from SalesCrunch, and we appreciate that they like our technology, but we have no intention of selling WebEx.”

SalesCrunch founder and CEO Sean Black was perplexed by the purported statement and issued a statement of his own:

“What’s interesting about that response—if it was actually issued from Cisco’s PR department and not simply pulled from Twitter—is that they got it all wrong.  For starters, our tender offer is a genuine one in which we hope will help avoid another disastrous scenario like Flip and save hundreds of jobs.  Further, both the tender offer and background presentation are based on the premise that we are not impressed by their technology, but instead interested in migrating WebEx’s millions of users onto a next-generation online meeting platform that integrates with market-leaders such as Salesforce and LinkedIn.  An intention to hold onto WebEx may be the truest part of the statement simply because history suggests they’ll shut it down before selling it.  I sincerely hope Cisco’s shareholders and Board are taking our offer seriously.”

Meanwhile, Cicso has swiftly upped the ante with a not-so-subtle flex of its marketing resources by beginning a paid Google search campaign on key phrases that include the copyrighted word “SalesCrunch.”

“Most of our customers have already tried WebEx before finding a better solution in us,” said Black, “so I’m not convinced the strategy of targeting professionals specifically seeking SalesCrunch is a worthy endeavor.  But, we got one on them last month, so we’ll let them have their fun.”
It appears Black is sincere in that statement as SalesCrunch seems to be having a little fun of its own.  Last Monday, his organization launched DontSuckAtMeetings.com, an online community dedicated to helping people, well, not suck at meetings.  In anyone’s guess what the company plans to do with its other recent domain acquisition: webexsucks.com

About SalesCrunch

Backed by Accel Partners, First Round Capital, Nextview Ventures and AOL Ventures, SalesCrunch is a next-generation meeting platform focused on applying science to the art of selling. The company offers a software-free, social, and scalable solution that helps track and measure customer interactions and sentiment across a company, makes selling transparent and empowers organizations to meet the demands of a new generation of buyers to power profits. For more information, visit www.salescrunch.com.

41 East 11th Street
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003
Press Contact: Jay Chalnick

This release was published on openPR.