Microsoft announced at the Small Business Summit that it is planning to release an IP phone system, code-named Response Point, for the small business market.
The new system supports both VoIP and traditional phone lines, and includes a voice-activated user interface.
Now in beta testing, Response Point will be generally available later this year in three models: D-Link DVX-2000, Quanta Syspine and Uniden Evolo.
Xuedong Huang, general manager of the Response Point team at Microsoft, said the OEM partners would bring their own special expertise to our customers, allowing us to serve a much broader range of small businesses.
Microsoft designed the Response Point software to empower small-business customers to manage system changes themselves.
“Keith A. Karlsen, executive vice president of D-Link Systems Inc., said his company knows from years of networking experience that many small businesses want an IT specialist to install their networking infrastructure. But they also want to manage simple things like moves, adds and changes on their own. With the user-friendly, PC-based Response Point management console, tasks such as adding a phone for a new employee or creating a call distribution list can be completed in a couple of minutes.
In addition to Response Point, Microsoft’s software-based VoIP foundation through Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007 will be part of the offering. Microsoft will distribute the public beta versions of Communications Server 2007 and Communicator 2007 later this month. The Beta 2 release of Response Point is scheduled for early April.
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