Looking at Microsoft ResponsePoint

There’s a couple of videos up at http://www.microsoft.com/responsepoint/default.mspx explaining Microsoft’s new “ResponsePoint” product – a Telephony server aimed at Small Businesses.

First impressions are that the system is very impressive. POTs and VoIP integration, the simplicity of installation, the integration with Microsoft Outlook and the excellent Voice Recognition features (pick the ‘phone up, press the blue button, say who you want to call… it rings that person!) should immediately win over many small businesses.

There is the question of how the system will be priced – if it’s considerably more expensive than a bog-standard small office PABX, I can see many small business owners still going for a lower price over any additional features.

ResponsePoint is OEM only – but does that mean we’ll only see solutions from the like of D-Link and Dell – or will Microsoft Partners be able to build their own ResponsePoint solutions directly?

So is ResponsePoint an Asterix (the Open Source Telephony System) killer? I’m guessing not. I can see ResponsePoint having a great up-take in the sub-10 user market – and it does look incredibly easy to manage meaning very little ongoing maintenance. But any company with more advanced needs from a Telephony system will probably continue to look towards a good Asterix deployment, or, heaven help them an expensive traditional PABX solution.

In the past quarter, I’ve seen two of my clients spend a fortune on a “traditional” PABX solution from an old-school supplier, only for me to tell them the equivalent VoIP solution would have double the features and cost half the price. Ouch! You might say I need to work harder on being these clients “trusted advisor”, not just their IT guy, but the thing is – many people still consider IT and Telephony to be two separate areas. I think the reality is that Telephony now is just as much a part of what is considered IT as e-mail, database or the PC on your desk is.