Response Point Product Announcement

Since 2008, we’ve worked to bring you news and updates about Response Point and we’ve appreciated your engagement as we’ve worked to support and deploy this product for small businesses in North America. If you’ve been following, you probably know by now that last year we made the decision to transition Response Point to engineering maintenance status in May of 2009.

After taking a good look at the Microsoft Response Point offering and the needs of small businesses, we’ve decided to discontinue the sale, support, and development of the Response Point phone system for small businesses, effective August 31, 2010. If you’re a current customer, you’ll be able to keep using your Response Point system per the terms of your equipment manufacturer’s purchase agreement.

I’m sure that many of you are asking why we decided to make this decision. We’ve been encouraged since the launch of Response Point by the positive response we’ve seen from our customers and channel partners who have been using the solution. However, even given this progress, we’ve determined that the demand that has materialized in the time since launch isn’t enough to sustain Response Point as a healthy, viable standalone business moving forward.

So, what does this mean for our current customers and partners?

§ As I mentioned before, all current Response Point customers will be able to use their system after August 31, 2010 according to the terms of their equipment manufacturer purchase agreement.

§ In support of our partners and current customers, we’ll continue to maintain the current web pages at www.microsoft.com/responsepoint until November 1, 2011.

§ For any return policy questions, you’ll need to contact the retailer or equipment reseller the system was purchased from directly.

To continue to support the needs of the small business community, we expect to consolidate our efforts and offerings in this space around Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS).

In the end, we’re thankful for all of the support we have received from our partners to date, and we’re committed to continuing our support of current OEMs, Service Providers and resellers through the end of August.

Thank you,

John Frederiksen