July 20, 2007

CRN: Microsoft's Small Business VoIP Fails To Impress

Computer Reseller News writes the following about Microsoft's new telephone system for small businesses:

However, after getting first hand look at Response Point at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver last week, one partner said he came away "thoroughly unimpressed."

"From a telephony point of view, it's a disappointment. It doesn't support T1 trunking, which is important, even for small businesses," said the Microsoft partner, who requested anonymity. "All it does support is regular POTS (plain old telephone service), which isn't a long term solution for most businesses because there's no growth path."

Hmmm. I have not heard further reports about Microsoft's telephone system so I can't make a definitive judgment on it. However, I can say that if version 1.0 is not so good, the next version is going to be much better and the 3rd one will be even better.

Only support POTS lines though, and not T1 lines might not be a big factor - for the first version. I know that TalkSwitch did a pretty healthy business selling their POTS based Talkswitch system for years. From what I remember it only supported POTS at the time. It could, however, do quite a bit more than what Microsoft's Response Point can do right now.

Should you buy right now? I'm not so sure, it's probably best to wait until version 2.0 comes out with some more features. But if you have nothing - it can't hurt to test it out and see if it works for you. Check back here for comments from telecommunication specialists.

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