If the original statement had a nugget of truth it would be easiest to just ignore it and not answer. Instead, they are going on the record and saying its not true.
> Instead, they are going on the record and saying its not true.
It's not like "going on record" means anything; truth is an oddly malleable thing. What's true today might not be tomorrow, what is said to be true may only be what the speaker needs you to believe is true, or it may be the speaker only believes it to be true.
The best predictor of what's to come is past experience and objective observation, not the words of people who have both incentive and ego wrapped up in propagating a particular narrative.
[edit] From another comment, here's an e-mail from the Parse team, from 1/15/2013 -- only 3 months ago:
"Being acquired isn't part of our game plan for now. We want to build a viable business that people can use and enjoy. We have 50k apps built on our infrastructure and a huge customer base that is growing rapidly. Everyday we have more and more Basic, Pro, and Enterprise users paying us for our awesome services."
