Just coming off an exciting weekend at SMB Nation East in NJ, there was a lot of buzz about the Microsoft Response Point telephone system solution. Some attendees loved it, others didn’t. In fact, after getting an ‘earful’ from what I consider to be a prominent IT company in the NY area, I took notes on what folks thought about Response Point. Here goes:
The Not So Great -
· No call accounting
· No provision for any messages or music on hold other than what came with the system
· No LDAP for Active Directory – must key in all employee names
· No intercom/paging within phone system (unless use other installed speaker system)
· 1100 contact maximum per user
· All phones must be on same subnet – i.e. no branch offices
· No soft phones for telecommuters
· 100 MB mailbox limit (for all user’s mailboxes)
· Doesn’t integrate outbound with Outlook or CRM (i.e. cannot bring up a contact and click dial)
· Cannot record a conversation
· Limited to 2 person (3 party) conference call
While that was an earfull - I also recieved some positive comments from this partner:
· Seen as SBS 4.0 - i.e. an entry level product not quite there yet with a TON OF POTENTIAL
· No one else has something like this at this price point (other than maybe Linksys)
· If MS stays committed to this product, expect great things to come
Here’s what I think -
MS Response Point is NOT a robust, feature heavy, universally applicable phone system for small business - not yet anyway. If you’re familiar with products such as Avaya IP Office, don’t try to compare head to head the two. Also, if you know the IP office system, you know that a 5-10 person company will likely spend between $12,000 and $15,000 for it, while response Point will be between $2,000 - $3,000.
The Good news is that Response Point is a great entry level product that will allow most smaller small business customers to get 80%-100% of what they are looking for in a phone system. It is also an additional revenue stream for you as a Partner to be more of a one stop shop for your customers.
The Better news is that Microsoft also has a higher end software based solution with Live Communications Server which is very powerful. It is only a matter of time and version releases before these two products get closer and Microsoft (and more importantly, you as a Partner) will have a robust telephone solution for any small business with any level of need.
The Best news is that we’ve seen what Microsoft does when it wants to enter a market. They enter with a solution that sounds fantastic but when you look under the hood (or look with hindsight) is all one may have hoped for. (SBS 4.0). But the deed is done - Microsoft has entered the market and the product just keeps getting better, and Partners have continually increasing revenue opportunities around the product.
So my advice is to begin. MS Reponse Point may not be perfect, but it is good enough for millions of customers out there who have a need. You can keep a potential competitor on the outside by offering your customers a solution. Then, years from now, when Microsoft’s phone system solutions are like SBS 2003 (unbeatable in the Small Biz market), you’ll proudly state that you have been working with the product from the beginning! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Also consider that almost every phone system provider needs to get into the network support business to survive in the years ahead. It is a harder road for them to learn network support than for us to learn phone system technologies - so don’t waste the head start you already have.
Happy hunting!
Matt Makowicz