Today at the third annual Microsoft Small Business Summit, Microsoft Corp. announced it will release a feature update, Service Pack 1 (SP1), to its Microsoft Response Point phone system software this summer, available free via a simple download.

"Small businesses rely heavily on the phone to communicate with customers and want a solution that allows them to reliably reach as many customers as possible at a low cost," said Xuedong Huang, general manager for Response Point at Microsoft. "Response Point SP1 will make it easy to transition from traditional analog service to the promise of digital voice services."

Response Point SP1 will enable small businesses to easily supplement their existing phone service with VoIP services. As customers become more comfortable with the reliability and quality of service offered by VoIP, they can seamlessly move from analog to VoIP without needing telephony expertise.

Recognizing that small businesses have ebbs and flows in employee hiring, SP1 will take advantage of the flexibility of VoIP to allow small businesses to scale much more rapidly and cost-effectively than with traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) lines. Using a simple VoIP account setup wizard in the Response Point Administrator, a small business can connect with Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs) to add new VoIP phone numbers in a matter of minutes. The process to install traditional analog lines can take days or even weeks. According to small-business research firm Access Markets International (AMI) Partners Inc., a small business with 10 to 19 employees can save an average of $8,000 in the first year by purchasing an IP-based phone system such as Response Point.

SP1 will also address the desire of small businesses to maintain a local presence through the use of a local VoIP phone number. VoIP providers allow businesses to select a local phone number for use in remote locations, alleviating costs to the business and customers for long-distance and toll-free numbers. Using a local phone number, small businesses can also secure their presence in local customer resources such as the chamber of commerce and local White and Yellow Pages.

Response Point SP1 also helps small businesses maintain close and responsive relationships with customers through support for Direct Inward Dialing, a key feature enabled by VoIP. A small business can configure Response Point to route known inbound callers directly to a particular extension or pool of extensions. Small-business owners can furnish a main number or individual employee extensions to ensure that someone is available.