Shady sales call? How can I tell?

April 21, 2012 4:41 PM

Are they really discontinuing that service?

My company (Company A) has a long standing contract with WebEx Web Office. On Friday, Company C, which offers a competing service to WebEx, called me directly and told me WebEx is discontinuing the Web Office product we use, would I be interested in their product.

Leaving aside for a moment the question of how they got my name and number, how do I confirm that WebEx really is discontinuing Web Office product. A Google search tells me nothing.

posted by bob bisquick to Technology (2 answers total)

Was Company C asked how they knew this & how you could verify it? Did you contact WebEx/Cisco and ask? Those seem like the obvious places to start.
posted by brainmouse at 4:45 PM on April 21, 2012

I wouldn't necessarily take WebEx's word for it that they are not discontinuing the service, or at the very least, make sure you have a backup plan ready. Panasonic famously left all their copier dealers high and dry about two years ago, saying "No, pay no attention to the rumors, we're not getting out of the copier game..." and then out of the blue I get a letter saying "Thanks for being a dealer for all these years; yeah, we're done making copiers. Seeya!" Poof, out of the blue, no warning at all. Now, obviously the reason Panasonic did this is they had a lot of existing unsold inventory, and if they said "Oh yeah, we're gonna pull the plug six months or a year from now," people would have jumped ship and left them with warehouses full of stock they couldn't move. WebEx, while not selling physical goods, may have similar reasons for denying such a move; if official word got out, people would of course jump ship like crazy, and probably earlier than WebEx would like, based on their end-of-life plan (assuming of course that the rumors are true.) Especially if it's a service you rely on, I would absolutely develop and test a backup plan just in case.
posted by xedrik at 10:07 PM on April 21, 2012