Microsoft Response Point: What Is Happening?

Microsoft Response Point is a small business phone system that I have been keeping my eye on for a little bit. I passed over it because of lack of features but because of it's Microsoft backing it's hard to ignore. Just a couple weeks ago at the SMBNation conference several active VARs (Ed Carnes and others) gave a pretty good Keynote on RP and peaked my interest again...

But the GM of ResponsePoint, John Frederiksen, made an announcement that jolted RP VARs about "changes in the RP business..." in a "coded" statement. What has been deduced by VARs closer to the subject then myself is that large reductions to the RP team were made.

There are a lot of rumors around and I don't want to feed them. I do want to say that if there is change in the air it doesn't need to be bad. At Landis Computer we survived having one of our primary Microsoft products, Microsoft Small Business Financials, being phased out in favor of a more costly product, Dynamics GP. We had a large amount of our business around SBF and approximately 40 clients using it so you can imagine our anxiety. But we worked with Microsoft through this process and emerged stronger and thriving more than before. Just some comments from my experience going through a product "change":

• If you are good at RP you will survive in some other product if need be
• The guys with the least installs will make the most noise
• Don't yell: be reasonable and work with microsoft contacts--they can help
• Have your own strategy too
• Don't beat up John Frederiksen at the town hall meeting...collaborate... ;-)
• Town Hall likely means big change or bad news but not end of world. ;-)
• Usually Microsoft put considerable research into a market move (more than we can afford!)
• Remember that the best solution may be a new one

In our case we emerged from the Microsoft Small Business Financials "change" in a much better position. I believe we are a stronger partner, with better connections to Microsoft, and using more resources from Microsoft. We are a solid, growing Microsoft GOLD Certified parnter as well as a Dymamics GP partner now.

I think I will attend the meeting just to see how things go. For all RP'ers, I wish the best!

ResponsePoint General Manager John Frederiksen twitter:
http://twitter.com/responsepoint

Links About RP Developements:
http://www.crn.com/networking/217500245;jsessionid=UVU4QY3KMP1MQQSNDLOSKHSCJUNN2JVN
http://www.thevarguy.com/2009/05/14/microsoft-response-point-unplugged/
http://ts2blogs.com/blogs/sdeming/archive/2009/05/14/what-s-going-on-with-response-point.aspx
http://telephonation.com/forum?func=view&catid=20&id=1769