In a recent post I discussed growing industry concerns that Microsoft was downsizing efforts for its Response Point Phone System software, and further development of the SOHO Phone System was in question. Well, following a Microsoft Town Hall meeting this week - it's official, Response Point will no longer be developed - meaning no new major releases are forthcoming. A small team will stay in place to maintain the product however, and bug fixes and some potential features may find their way into the Response Point software.
Microsoft's Response Point Software runs on embedded Windows XP, which is largely why the system is perceived as easy to set up and configure. 3CX Phone System however is a much better alternative as it actually runs on regular Windows flavors, is rapidly developed, and can reside and talk to the computers and applications that you already own.
Here are the finer points of the Microsoft Town Hall Meeting announcement wrt Response Point:
Response Point Project Update
- Org Changes: - RP Team was affected by May head count reductions at Microsoft - There is still a small RP engineering team in Redmond responsible for maintaining the product - Xuedong (XD) Huang has moved to a new role in search - RP v1.0 SP2 will continue to be sold and supported through existing OEM's - There are no current plans for future version releases of Response Point, but Microsoft will continue to evaluate specific feature requests and continue to maintain the product - Microsoft will continue to market the current product to their OEM's and Resellers online
More info available at the Response Point Team Blog located here.
Hey everyone - for the fourth year in a row Deerfield.com has shown VisNetic MailFlow at Internet Retailer, however this year was something special as we unveiled the new 3CX Phone System and MailFlow integration that is due to be released this July. The new integration takes advantage of the CRM plug-in capabilities of the new 3CX Call Assistant that was released in conjunction with 3CX V7.
Essentially, MailFlow can be described as an email PBX that is used by customer service departments. It is especially useful for organizations that are using email for a customer, vendor, or partner contact point. For a few more details - see the following blog post from the recent 3CX Boot Camp that Deerfield participated in. If you are interested in previewing the new MailFlow and 3CX solution, or becoming a Deerfield reseller - send an email to sales at deerfield.com, or call 989-732-8856
In an effort to further reduce the barrier of deploying a VoIP IP PBX, 3CX has announced the immediate availability of their free online training course. This training consists of a series of video tutorials, which will take you through setup, configuration and maintenance of 3CX Phone System. The 3CX training will benefit both reseller partners, and end user customers looking to deploy 3CX into a production environment. This move propels 3CX to the front runner position as the easiest IP PBX to install, configure, and maintain.
Once users have completed the training course, they can elect to complete the certification test to further validate their understanding of the 3CX Phone System by becoming 3CX Certified.
Last Tuesday in Chicago 46 attendees representing about 30 companies participated in 3CX sales and technical training. Attendees were greeted with a brief introduction by Brian Conway - 3CX Channel Manager, whom during his presentation shared with the group 3CX's V8 roadmap. Mike Harris from the 3CX premium partner Worksighted conducted the 3CX technical training by showing a 3CX installation, various menu options, and some basic troubleshooting. Before lunch, brief presentations were performed by 3CX distributors, SoTel, 888VoIPStore, and Deerfield Communications Inc. , and many participants walked away with giveaway prizes which included IP Phones, from SNOM and Aastra, Software from Deerfield, a VoiceGear Skype Gateway, and USB drives from 3CX.
Of particular interest - Deerfield's Mike Ryan, Product Manager showed a preview of the new integration between 3CX and VisNetic MailFlow, which is an on-premise, web-driven email "PBX" used for customer service. By utilizing the new 3CX CRM integration, Deerfield created a plug-in that allows for integration between VisNetic MailFlow and 3CX. While using VisNetic MailFlow with the 3CX CRM plug-in, users are able to received a pop-up screen on their computer (when an incoming call comes into their phone) that displays contact information about the caller from the MailFlow database. Users can instantly view the contact history of the caller by simply selecting a link; both phone and email correspondence - while also creating a new "note" for the contact during the current call which will time/date stamp and record the duration of the conversation. Typed notes recapping the call can also be stored in the note which than can be later viewed by any user with the proper credentials with a few clicks of the mouse.
In a later post - I'll detail the 3CX/MailFlow integration, but you can also get a look at it yourself by contacting Deerfield Sales here.
We are anticipating a very successful 3CX partner meeting next week in Chicago! We are expecting roughly 40 companies will be represented and about 65 attendees. In addition to the training opportunity there are going to be some great giveaways by 3CX Distributors - including SIP phones by Aastra and SNOM (Courtesy 888VoipStore), Sangoma VoIP Gateway adapters (courtesy Sotel), VisNetic MailFlow Software (Courtesy Deerfield.com), and a VoiceGear Skype Gateway (Courtesy Deerfield.com)! There's still time to register - but hurry! Register by clicking here.
The meeting will be focused heavily on technical training with sales pointers sprinkled in throughout the day.
We want to inform you there has been a change in the schedule regarding presentations.
Unfortunately, Nick Galea, CEO and Founder of 3CX is not able to attend this year’s partner meeting but sends along his wishes for a most profitable meeting. Nick’s presentation, the 3CX Roadmap, will be presented by Brian Conway, 3CX Channel Manager. Also, Mike Ryan, representing Deerfield.com will conduct a short 10 minute presentation showing the new CRM integration between 3CX and VisNetic Mailflow - Deerfield's Email Customer Service solution.
Mike Harris, from Worksighted, will be conducting the technical training endorsed by 3CX. Mike has been extremely successful deploying 3CX throughout the world and is a Premium 3CX partner.
3CX would like to invite you to a Monday evening get together at the Fairmont Hotel next to the Microsoft Training Center for an informal meet and greet time. Please join us at the Aria Bar and Restaurant on the first floor of the Fairmont Hotel at 7:30 PM if you are able to join us.
For our 3CX Phone SystemChannel Partners and Customers with International locations, or branch offices - 3CX announced the release of additional language prompt sets today.
The following language prompsets are new or updated and are available today:
German (new) French (new) Swedish (new) Dutch (new) Danish (updated) Italian (updated) Polish (new) Japanese (new)
To install the prompt set:
1. Go to system updates 2. Select the language you want 3. Click download (IGNORE that interface says that it is up to date) 4. Restart IVR service (because it keeps a cache of the old prompts)
Today marks the end of an era at Deerfield Communications Inc., as we have spent the last couple of days decommissioning our old Nortel Norstar Meridian phone system. Basically, it has been sitting idle on the wall - although still powered up for the last two years. Call us crazy conservative, or ambitiously lazy I don't care - but we finally got around to powering it down, and removing it from the wall. We are in the process of inventorying it - and hopefully looking for a new owner on the secondary market.
My son Tyler (who is home for a few weeks from college) and I actually removed it ourselves. I wanted to use it as a training opportunity for him. I must be a complete geek because I want to show him how much advantage there is to open systems running on Windows vs. proprietary hardware. He and I have had these conversations many times wrt Xbox and PlayStation, etc. This was an opportunity to roll up our sleeves and have at it firsthand.
During the process, it really hit home to me today how much more space efficient, less complicated and less expensive our 3CX Phone System (that replaced the Nortel) is. It's almost unbelievable, no wonder Nortel are in bankruptcy! lol .. I have attached some pictures of the old system to the blog - and I think you'd have to agree. All of this hardware (each module has it's own separate power supply) was replaced by a single rack-mount computer running Windows, a Patton VoIP Gateway, a POE Switch, and an FXS Gateway. Since the old Nortel System cost somewhere around 30K just for the grey boxes, plus phones @ 300+ each, and various ATA's etc., I estimate that we replaced this system for 1/10 of its original cost - and we have a system that integrates to our back-end messaging systems, provides unified messaging and remote extensions, along with a host of other features that the old system did not provide. Not to mention the the reduced power consumption and conservation of raw materials used to make all of those gray chassis, etc. Certainly a much "Greener" solution.
On top of all of this - I also found the folder with our service contract agreements, which ran about 2,500-3,500 per year. An adequately configured 3CX system can for the most part be administered internally, and maybe a few hundred dollars a year for support and upgrade insurance.
So. Goodbye old TDM key system - you've served us well, but your time has come... and gone!
-Application Vendors Leverage NetBorder Express 2.0 To Use Sangoma Interface Cards on a Windows Platform-
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - June 1, 2009) - Sangoma(R) Technologies Corporation (TSX VENTURE:STC) today announced that the new release of its NetBorder VoIP Gateway Cards, which is first on the market to support both analog and digital interfaces, is now shipping. Providers expect great demand for NetBorder Express 2.0 in broad markets.
Aside from supporting analog cards, NetBorder Express 2.0 adds a powerful Web interface that takes care of installation, configuration, and SIP to TDM gateway management. Customizable tone processing features, and the new management console, all add up to lower-cost, easier deployments for developers and end users.
NetBorder Express 2.0-based solutions are unique because the card can reside in the same server as the developer's application, so SIP-based PBX resellers can package single-box solutions with an internal gateway. End users with limited VoIP expertise can still implement VoIP gateway functionality.
Early adopter 3CX, an award-winning SIP-based PBX provider, eagerly awaited the upgrade because NetBorder Express 2.0 has enabled them to extend the use of Sangoma cards on a Windows platform. 3CX has been able to create some custom management interfaces, which provide tight integration between NetBorder Express and 3CX PBX.
3CX CEO Nick Galea thinks his customers will benefit enormously. "Sangoma cards are good for our customers because the complete solution of Sangoma, plus NetBorder Express 2.0, plus 3CX will be easy to install, easy to use and very cost effective," said Galea.
This week 3CX Phone System won WindowsNetworking.com Readers’ Choice Award in the IP PBX Servers Category, beating out Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Asterisk for the top spot.
For more about WindowsNetworking.com Readers' Choice Award - below is a snippet from their website:
"Readers’ Choice Awards give visitors to our site the opportunity to vote for the products they view as the very best in their respective category,” said Sean Buttigieg, WindowsNetworking.com manager. “WindowsNetworking.com users are specialists in their field who encounter various solutions for Enterprise Networking at the workplace. The award serves as a mark of excellence, providing the ultimate recognition from peers within the industry.”
WindowsNetworking.com conducts monthly polls to discover which product is preferred by network administrators in a particular category of third party solutions for Enterprise Networking. The awards draw a huge response per category and are based entirely on the visitors’ votes."
No one can deny that Asterisk and its derivatives are at least partially responsible for creating the demand for IP PBX's and our VoIP enabled telecommunications market. While the financial model varies by manufacturer (free or fee) the Linux-based IP PBX appeals to open-source proponents, and early adopters of VoIP IP PBX's. Many Asterisk enthusiasts got their first taste of an IP PBX by installing (or at least trying to install) Asterisk in a lab and playing around with it. Also - I would have to readily admit that Asterisk (and its like derivatives) helped actually create a market for standard SIP hardware, allowing a multitude of manufacturers and vendors to pop-up and supply SIP devices for those needing phones, switches, and FXO / FXS gateways.
By comparison - this parallels the Internet "Gold Rush" of the mid-1990's. Basically, the original Internet itself was built upon Unix and Linux servers. This stayed the defacto standard until at least the mid-90's. Even when we at Deerfield created our Internet presence back in 1994, we built our infrastructure on BSD boxes and Apache web servers. If I were to hunt around our data center today, I might still find one or two of these boxes still running. Over time however - as our dependence on our corporate web presence grew, we started migrating our servers over to Windows from Unix and Linux. As we all are aware today Windows-based Internet servers and IIS have a significant market share as Internet and web servers. The driving force for us (and others) to migrate from Linux to Windows was simplicity, ROI, and interoperability to other back-office systems.
By looking at the data provided by Netcraft - a long time Internet server statistic provider, we can see that Apache still leads as the most popular web platform - followed by MS IIS. One item to note here however - is that Apache is also available on Windows platforms, so some percent of these are actually running Windows also. Looking a little more granular, I believe that Windows servers are more popular amongst the SMB market segment. I believe the reasons for this are several - but at the top of the list would be its simplicity and familiarity amongst this audience - say vs. Linux, which is more complex and not nearly as well supported as an enterprise operating system for SMB's. Why? Simple. Applications. More SMB software applications exist for Windows than any other operating system.
For some of these same reasons - the next phase of adoption of Softswitch IP PBX's will be running on Windows servers and 3CX is leading the way. For the IP PBX phone system to reach maturity in the SMB market - it is a necessary step because SMB's will demand that their corporate IP PBX run on the same back-end servers as their corporate messaging, accounting, and CRM applications. The same argument applies wrt black-box PBX's, which are inherently complex and difficult to interface to.
To further illustrate this point - please view the following short video on the topic produced by Nick Galea, CEO of 3CX.
After reading a recent blog post from a popular technology blog, one has to ask the question; Is Microsoft loosing interest in the SMB VoIP Market wrt its Response Point product?
Apparently on May 7th, Microsoft Response Point GM John Frederiksen made a clearly "fuzzy" statement on the Response Point Team blog, leaving more questions than answers wrt the release of the awaited V2.0 Response Point Software. You can read that blog post here. Some speculate that the Response Point team fell victim to the recent round of layoff's at Microsoft, and others speculate that the seed money MS used to bootstrap the Response Point business unit has dried up.
If true (which will be known in the coming weeks and months) it does put those SMB's who purchased Response Point based systems in a potentially precarious position, essentially bringing end-of-life to their proprietary IP PBX that they've just purchased under the assumption that it was new and cutting edge. On this issue - I guess that's why we've always subscribed to the theory that open architecture is preferable to proprietary software/hardware for most horizontal customers (those not having industry specific needs). Unfortunately, the Response System Phones and PBX box are proprietary and most likely will not be able to run another IP PBX software without extensive modification. Of course, this will only come into play if the Response Point deploying SMB has needs beyond what the current system is providing (quite likely), or unresolvable bugs.
In the wake of this potential black-eye for Microsoft we restate one of main advantages of deploying a software-based IP PBX like 3CX Phone System for Windows. We don't expect it to go away soon (development and new releases have continued at a blistering pace), and if it ever does - it won't take your complete phone system hardware with it. The more likely situation will be that you will need to continue to expand it over it's service life, and doing so couldn't be easier or more economical since it lives on the same machines that your back-end server applications live, and uses industry Standard SIP devices.
Realizing that hotel industry represents a significant percentage of the business PBX phone system market, combined with fact that these systems (historically) are artificially expensive for hotel owners to purchase, 3CX has answered with the new 3CX Hotel Module released this week. By releasing the 3CX Hotel Module, 3CX sets new standards in both economics and functionality benefits for hotel-based phone system owners. Utilizing 3CX with the new hotel module will allow hotel operators to have all the cutting edge features and easy administration of a 3CX VoIP-based IP PBX, at a fraction of the cost of legacy hotel systems. They will still have all of the back-office and billing integration capabilities of their old system, and can even enjoy reduced call costs by implementing low-cost VoIP providers for their outgoing calls. You can read the complete press release here, and/or enjoy the following 8 minute video introduction.
The official press release is now out, disclosing the new partnership between Deerfield Communications Inc. and Industry Dynamics to deliver the VoiceGear line of Skype Gateways to Deerfield's VoIP Channel. The following is an except of the release:
"Toronto, Ontario (PRWEB) May 4, 2009 -- The timing for cost saving technology is now! As the economy continues to face a downturn, companies are eagerly seeking practical strategies to tighten their belts and find solutions that deliver a fast ROI. With VoiceGear, Deerfield is fully equipped to help global SMB and Enterprise customers benefit from the fantastic cost savings and numerous advantages of Skype communication." The complete press release can be viewed here.
As part of the release, the following Podcast was produced featuring Dmitry Baev, CEO of Industry Dynamics, and Don Hoyt (Sales Manager), and Mike Ryan (Product Manager) at Deerfield Communications. You can listen to the 5 minute Podcast by clicking here.
OK - so, I'm not going to mention the poor economy - or some sort of VoIP stimulus package ;-) Am I the only one sick of this? lol .. What I will mention however is something that is always in style, lower prices. This time it is Patton Electronics stepping up to the plate and offering new reduced MSRP (and reseller) prices on their 2, 4, and 8 port FXS Gateway(s). This is welcome and timely with the release of 3CX Phone System V7.1 and the new Call Assistant, which makes it practical to use even low-cost analog phones with 3CX and still enjoy the features of high-end SIP Phones
Mike Deerfield, Founder and CEO of Deerfield Communications Inc., a Publisher and Distributor of Computer Software enabling Multi-Contact communications via the Internet - Email, Chat, and Voice
Today marks the end of an era at Deerfield Communications Inc., as we have spent the last couple of days decommissioning our old Nortel Norstar Meridian phone system. Basically, it has been sitting idle on the wall - although still powered up for the last two years. Call us crazy conservative, or ambitiously lazy I don't care - but we finally got around to powering it down, and removing it from the wall. We are in the process of inventorying it - and hopefully looking for a new owner on the secondary market.
