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SMB Phone Goes to Market with Response Point

For those at IT Expo, this free session is about to begin in Room 109.

4. An Integrated Solution: SMB Phone Goes to Market
with Response Point

3:00 – 4:00 pm

SMB Phone is a unique VAR and ITSP. Come learn how they identified Response Point as a key technical and business component in their nation-wide go to market programs focused on SMBs.

Presented by:
Trent Johnsen, Vice President, Business Development, SMB Phone

Response Point Service Pack 2 (SP 2) is GA

The Response Point team have done it again. Response Point SP 2 is now generally available.

Some new features include:

– 1 way paging

– 2 way intercom

– After hours / time of day rules

– Out of band DTMF

Tom has a great in-depth review of SP2!

SMB Phone Launches SMB Digital Voice for Canadian Small Business

SMB Phone announces Microsoft Marketing Alliance for Response Point and launches SMB Digital Voice™ in 48 markets to provide enhanced choice and services for Canadian small medium businesses

Response Point and SMB Digital Voice enable reliable communications for small businesses in Canada.

February 2, 2009, IT Expo East, Miami, “The World’s Communication Conference”
SMB Phone Inc., a new Canadian telecom carrier created exclusively for Microsoft Response Point services announces, simpler, smarter and easier phone service for Canadian small business, in partnership with Microsoft.

The Microsoft and SMB Phone marketing alliance heralds a new era of affordable, feature rich, easy-to-manage, easy-to-use business communications integrating voice recognition, email, computer and mobile services for small medium business in Canada. Canadian small medium businesses now have affordable, easy, online access to a new generation of business communication features and services with Microsoft Response Point and SMB Phone.

Response Point is the highly innovative, award winning telephone system from Microsoft designed specifically for small medium businesses with up to 50 users. Extremely easy to afford, manage and use, Microsoft Response Point provides small medium business customers unprecedented control over a rich suite of business communications features including voice recognition enabled auto-attendant and user features, integration with the Windows desktop for inbound caller ID, click to call, and call control functions, voicemail to email delivery, extensive call history and call detail reporting, and seamless call integration with mobile devices. SMB Phone President, Erik Lagerway comments:

“A phone system is a strategic investment for businesses today. Response Point enables business owner managers to serve customers more effectively, reduce and control costs and provides employees the means to increased productivity.”

“SMB Phone is demonstrating an innovative, progressive approach as a Canadian market leader and certified Response Point service provider,”

John Frederiksen, general manager, Microsoft Response Point, had this to say,

“The combination of Microsoft Response Point and SMB Phone’s Digital Voice services provide Canadian small and medium sized businesses with outstanding functionality and value including the ability to activate a new business line in minutes within any of SMB Phone’s 48 markets using SMB Phone’s automated Response Point activation process. We look forward to our continued work with SMB Phone as we serve and grow our Canadian Response Point customer base.”

SMB Phone’s Digital Voice service is designed specifically for Response Point users and provides an alternative to “POTS” (Plain old telephone service) lines with enhanced features at lower costs, instant service activation, and is easier to manage than traditional business telephone lines. SMB Digital Voice features include:

– instant activation of new SMB Digital Voice lines directly through Microsoft Response Point Administrator software
– digital line groups provide for multiple simultaneous calls
– Direct Dial numbers for employees, departments, projects etc.
– unlimited North American long distance usage
– Cellular toll bypass to eliminate cellular long distance charges
– “cloud” number administration service for remote call control management
– “virtual presence” numbers provide a local phone number anywhere in Canada

SMB Phone Inc. is making small medium business communications simpler, smarter and easier as the world’s first Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP) dedicated to providing certified Microsoft Response Point services. SMB Phone and our network of dealer/partners currently serve 48 local market areas in Canada with Microsoft Response Point phone systems and SMB Digital Voice service for Response Point. For additional information on Microsoft Response Point, SMB Digital Voice and SMB Phone please visit http://smbphone.ca

SMB Phone Inc.
Media Contact: Trent Johnsen | 1.866.473.0516 | trent.johnsen@smbphone.com

Response Point Wins Another Award

Rex Backman just posted this beauty, “The Response Point team has put another win in the bag with the InfoWorld 2009 Technology of Year Award

Apple and Microsoft topped the list of InfoWorld’s annual product award winners this year, nabbing three and four Technology of the Year Awards, respectively. Announced today, InfoWorld’s 2009 Technology of the Year Awards recognize the best hardware and software products evaluated by InfoWorld reviewers during 2008.

SMB Phone Systems Expands Microsoft Response Point Offer To Alberta

As many of you already know, I have been building up a PBX equipment vendor and interconnect  specializing in Microsoft’s Response Point small phone systems. I have done a number of Response Point installations (many more since that post) in the Lower Mainland and my customers seem genuinely happy. With this in mind I decided to expand into Alberta.

“SMB Phone Systems” now has installers and sales personnel in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary. I have a long list of referral customers, spanning many verticals, ranging from 1 person to 20 workstations that would be happy to provide their honest opinion on the Response Point system and their experiences with my newest little venture.

If you are a small business located in Vancouver, Edmonton or Calgary and find yourself in need of a Small Office Phone System be sure to visit our website “SMBPhoneSystems.ca” or call sales at (866) 473-0516 ext.1.

Response Point – Small Office Phone System – Install 3

Yesterday marked my 3rd installation of a Response Point small office phone system.

Simple SMB Phone System

This time the customer opted for the Syspine system simply because of the Power over Ethernet features that Syspine has integrated.

They are a small company based in Vancouver and needed a system that offered maximum flexibility, virtual operator features and could scale to 30 or 40 seats.

Since they are all working during the day, having a receptionist answer the phone was not going to fly. When I showed them the virtual operator feature for Response Point coupled with the Voice Recognition and Voice mail to Email features, they flipped.

“It’s exactly what a company like ours needs.” Was the comment I received.

I set them up with a the Syspine system and 6 handsets, a Gigabit PoE switch, UPS and about 250′ of Cat6 cabling. I already knew the LAN layout so when I showed up for the install I knew it was going to go off without a hitch, or at least it should have.

Since my previous customers went with the D-Link VoiceCenter system, this was to be my first Syspine installation. I am not new to PoE so stringing the cable and getting the phones powered up went rather quickly. Then something strange happened. The devices on the LAN started picking up IP addresses that were not coming from my router. Hmm, my lab system never did this. On top of it the router was dropping wireless connections like crazy. Then I remember my distributor saying something about an embedded security gateway that shipped with the production Syspine systems, and that the lab systems did not come with the gateway.

I started poking around in the admin interface and sure enough I found the gateway DHCP settings tucked away in a hidden advanced settings menu.

Since we are not using any VPNs here and the administrator wanted to administer the LAN via the WAN IP, I connected all the LAN drops via the gig switch to the LAN router .

Now the the network was happy and so was I. Since the install spanned over a couple of days the timing actually worked out well. I was able to get the Response Point Service Pack 1 installed and now the customer can use SIP trunks (VoIP) for his call forwarding without using up an analog line. You should have seen the smile on his face when I told him that 🙂

I will give them a week or so to do some discovery and then I will get them up to speed on the Click to Call capabilities, Windows screen pops for incoming calls and some SIP call forwarding.

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