2 Windows Phone Systems Contend To Replace Response Point: 3CX and pbxnsip

The results from the survey are in and you have spoken. Who is the best positioned successor to Microsoft Response Point? 3CX came in first place! pbxnsip had a very strong showing and came in second. During the survey pbxnsip was leading the way for some time and (I'll admit) I was a bit surprised to see that.

This is a somewhat interesting competition here since I've co-written a book on 3CX and am a Certified pbxnsip Partner & recommend pbxnsip!

I have to agree that 3CX is probably the closest Windows phone system to compare to Response Point in various ways: Ease of use is paramount, a very Windows-like interface,  and the industry's best support for automated PSTN/PRI gateway setup. 3CX is targeted at do-it-yourself and generalist IT market. On the cons side it has a smaller feature set, few system monitoring options and due to its rapid developement our experience has been it has little day to day "bug-a-boo" issues. 3CX has a large community and market awareness around it.

pbxnsip is a bit more mature, has a more generic web interface that is nice but not distinctly Windows (pbxnsip runs on Windows, Linux, Mac & plugcomputer). Finally stability, security, scalability and feature set have been given more attention than ease of use with pbxnsip. pbxnsip has a smaller but more mature & savvy VOIP reseller base that includes a fair amount of partners providing hosted phone systems to their clients.

OCS and Cisco also got quite a few votes. Don't forget that Microsoft appears to be positioning OCS Hosted as a replacement for RP. I believe with CS "14" they might be able to pull it off. Check my article on hosted OCS here.

Thanks for contibuting to this survey!

Syspine Makes FREE Softphone for Response Point

Response Point is going through it's struggles but apparently OEM's are still moving things forward as Syspine has just released a softphone for Response Point. Call pop, Skins, and remote phone are all features it has. Take a look at it over at:
http://www.syspine.com/RP-310Softphone.aspx

Looking for Free Music On Hold for Your Windows Phone System?

I was just at a prospect that wanted to replace an Avaya Partner system and was appalled that there was a box (that was bigger than the entire pbxnsip CS410 phone appliance!) to facilitate music on hold! One great feature of a PC based phone system is that you can just plop an .mp3 or .wav file in a folder a have music on hold! 3CX and pbxnsip Windows phone systems both allow this.

When I was attending the SMBNation session on ResponsePoint I'll admit I was surprised that you needed to plug a mp3 player into the RP phone system to get music on hold other than the default music.

Take a look at this royalty free music for your PC phone system:
http://opsound.org/genre/classical/
(and gloat a little that you don't need a big music on hold player to use it! ;-)

Aastra Won't Abandon Response Point VARs & Users: Announces RP to SIP Firmware Upgrade

If you been watching Response Point at all you know that the future is uncertain. One of the great benefits of SIP standards based ip pbx's is that you are never left high and dry. Your pbx vendor goes belly up? No problem, just switch the pbx server and use your existing investment in phones and other hardware. The problem with RP is that is wasn't standards based--but thankfully Aastra is providing a firmware to make their phones be standard SIP. This is a refreshing vendor move to say the least!

To read more about Aastra's SIP firmward upgrade click here.