Microsoft Response Point to die
Posted by Cloud Net on Wed, May 26, 2010 @ 04:21 AM
Further evidence of the death of the traditional PBX comes in the
form of Microsoft’s recent announcement over the official cancellation of Response Point, its small-business phone system.
In a post on its Web site, Microsoft said it will end sales, development, and support for the phone as of August 31, 2010.
The system was launched in 2007 amongst a blaze of publicity.
According to Microsoft at the time, only about one-third of small businesses used PBXs (or switchboards) because they were expensive and difficult to install and manage. You need a lot of technical expertise, they said. Microsoft saw this as an opportunity to make phone systems as accessible to small businesses as PCs.
In 2007 they said “The Microsoft Response Point System will be available this year. Microsoft is not yet disclosing the pricing, but it would be "competitive" with typical small-business PBXs that cost from about $5,000 to more than $10,000”.
Microsoft's Response Point software was used by several phone makers, including Quanta, whose system was sold for a time at Costco.com.
With cloud-based PBX systems, such as Cloud Net Connect, being essentially free it is not difficult to see why even the mighty Microsoft couldn’t sell a system that required maintenance and configuration.
Cloud Net is not aware of any UK-based customers but if there are any we would be delighted to offer our system as the ideal replacement. There is no capital outlay required and, with a 30-day money back period, no risk involved either. Customers will benefit from the most powerful system on the planet with a low-cost, inclusive subscription model. And because it’s internet-based and updated automatically, the system is always state-of-the –art.
Microsoft’s decision to pull out of the market follows a similar decision by Tesco, in April of this year, who left their VoIP customers without a product offering.