Small Business VoIP

The rising market for Netbooks – low cost, mini-laptops optimized for Internet use that sell for about $400 and have emerged as a bright spot in the struggling electronics industry – isn’t something you’d expect officials from Microsoft Corp. to want to talk about.

 

After all, the rise of Netbooks has helped fuel slower spending on PCs, which in turn hurt recent quarterly earnings for the world’s largest maker of software.

 

Yet moments ago, during a keynote address at the Internet Telephony Conference & Expo, John Frederiksen, general manager of Microsoft Response Point – the company’s new IP-PBX (News - Alert) for small businesses – pointed to Netbooks as an example of how innovation can thrive and drive revenues even in the face of an overall slower economy.

 

Frederiksen said that’s a philosophy that Microsoft (News - Alert) is embracing as it develops Response Point – a widely discussed product whose Service Packet 2 was launched here yesterday at ITEXPO – and eyes a communications space that the company believes will form the foundation of the next major shift in the industry.

 

“It’s a fundamental belief at Microsoft that one of the next big waves of product enhancement will come through communications, and I think we’re seeing a lot of that today in mobile communications,” Frederiksen told more than 300 VoIP insiders, IT professionals, media members and others (pictured right) packed into a conference hall at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

 

“But what really stands out for me as I go out and meet customers is how few customers are really reaping those benefits,” he continued. “How many legacy phone systems are still out there and how many are paying large telephone charges without being aware of the possibilities of Voice-over-IP or switching over to a next-generation system. I think there’s really going to be a wave of upgrades which are going to occur in the next couple of years that are going to let customers start to reap those benefits.”

 

The packed-house attendance at Frederiksen’s speech alone speaks to the strength of the VoIP market and the likelihood that more and more businesses – especially those with up to 50 workers, a group that Microsoft is targeting with Response Point – will migrate to the cost-saving technology.

 

While cost-savings are on many companies’ minds, industry leaders such as Microsoft say that investment in technology will help accelerate business as this slower economy picks up.

 

In fact, TMCnet reported here about a new offer from a 70-year-old Palo Alto (News - Alert), California-based company that’s encouraging investment in technology through a zero percent financing program.

 

Officials at HP say that their 12-month promotion plan will allow small business to invest in new technology while managing cash flow. Offered through a company subsidiary, HP Financial Services, HP is offering promotions that it says will allow customers either to lease or own products.

 

“These offers allow customers to invest in technology that can grow their business while minding their budget and freeing up capital,” said Fred Bullock, vice president of marketing at HP America’s personal systems group.

 

Frederiksen said during his ITEXPO (News - Alert) keynote that the market is poised now for the same phenomenon from VoIP and unified communications.

 

Envisioning how communications will streamline businesses operations in three to five years, Frederiksen said that mobile devices will evolve to perform more functions and that companies, with the help of unified communications, will see the end of a workplace environment that he described as “chaotic, cost-conscious, fragmented and demanding.”

 

Aided by two videos that painted a future where everyday tasks – such as bank transactions – are streamlined, Frederiksen predicted that that the telecom space would see new hardware devices – such as in IP-PBXs and handsets – as well applications that integrate features such as CRM and customer databases.

 

Most of all, Frederiksen said that he expected software to form the foundation of the next major transformation in the communications space.

 

“To say we’re bullish on this future is a little bit of an understatement,” Frederiksen said. “We think that a lot of these things will occur over the next three to five years.”