Communications
Response Point SP1 to empower small businesses with VoIP
25 March 2008
At the recent, third annual Microsoft Small Business Summit, Microsoft announced the release of a feature update, Service Pack 1 (SP1), to its Microsoft Response Point phone system software. The pack will be available as a free download this summer.
“Small businesses rely heavily on the phone to communicate with customers and want a solution that allows them to reliably reach as many customers as possible at a low cost,” said Xuedong Huang, general manager for Response Point at Microsoft. “Response Point SP1 will make it easy to transition from traditional analogue service to the promise of digital voice services.”
SP1 will take advantage of the flexibility of VoIP to allow small businesses to scale more rapidly and cost-effectively than with traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) lines. If IP service is in place, using a simple VoIP account setup wizard in the Response Point Administrator, a small business can connect with Internet telephony service providers to add new VoIP phone numbers in a matter of minutes.
Response Point SP1 also helps small businesses maintain close and responsive relationships with customers through support for Direct Inward Dialling. A small business can configure Response Point to route known inbound callers directly to a particular extension or pool of extensions. Small-business owners can furnish a main number or individual employee extensions to ensure that someone is available for important customers.
Response Point hardware vendors Aastra Technologies, D-Link and Quanta Computer will ship end-to-end Response Point phone systems, pre-loaded with SP1, this summer. The SP1 release will coincide with Aastra’s Response Point phone system debut.
“Response Point is a great complement to our portfolio of enterprise and enterprise IP communications products,” said Yves Laliberté, executive vice president at Aastra. “We chose to incorporate Response Point into our line because we believe that Microsoft has done a very good job of designing the software from the ground up to address the unique needs of small businesses and it will be well supported by Microsoft’s channel partners. The integration of Response Point’s system software with our scalable and flexible corded and wireless SIP phones will allow us to offer compelling desktop and mobility solutions to small-business customers.”