Signal to Noise

According to the folks at Fonality, their PBXtra soft phone system product beats Microsoft Reponse Point. They cite the recent receipt of a TMC Labs Innovation Award. TMC, of course, is the well-known promoter/publisher of mostly telecommunications-centered periodicals and tradeshows. Let’s take a look at the differences between the two systems, and you draw your own conclusion:

Platform

Fonality’s PBXtra is a highly-customize variant of the open-source Asterisk solution. Asterisk is a software-based PBX for Linux that has also shown up in incomplete form on Mac OS X and FreeBSD. Response Point, meanwhile, is a Windows-based solution that borrows heavily from the code developed for other Microsoft projects, including an OEM-licensed PBX and Microsoft’s conferencing product, Office Communications Server. The Response Point code is distributed in an embedded fashion using third-party hardware made by the likes of D-Link. PBXtra, meanwhile, comes on a PC put together by Fonality. ADVANTAGE: Tie.

Management

Managing both solutions occurs by way of a web interface powered by an onboard web server. In PBXtra’s case, that web server is Apache. In Response Point’s case, it’s Microsoft’s IIS. But Response Point takes the user interface for system management a step further, providing a Windows-only GUI that runs on a PC client. Very slick, but also very homogeneous. For distance-challenged administrators, this is a problem. Sure, VPNS and remote desktops can solve this issue. But why can’t the system’s administrative GUI *just work* ? ADVANTAGE: PBXtra.

Support

The key ingredients in support are attentiveness to client issues and problem prevention. Fonality provides what they referred to as a managed solution, maintaining an Internet-based connection to your PBX, while Microsoft and its hardware partners provide no such connection. That being said, Microsoft has always been a VAR-friendly manufacturer, and setting Response Point up as a managed solution is no more difficult than it is with any other typical Redmond product.  As with many open source solutions, finding support for the product is a crapshoot, but Fonality has a track record supporting their Asterisk variant, and I don’t expect they’ll be going anywhere any time soon. ADVANTAGE: Tie.

Desktop Telephony Functions

Both systems use SIP as their primary signaling protocol. Since SIP is an extensible protocol, this will allow them to grow through software in the coming years. That said, desktop integration works well with both. Call progress monitoring and integration of softphones is a snap. Where Response Point holds the upper hand is its ability to more easily tie to Outlook and MS-based solutions on the desktop. No big surprise there. PBXtra does provide screen pops  and click-to-call for Outlook contacts, but that’s about it. ADVANTAGE: Response Point.

Call Center Functions

Response Point is not a call-center product, period. PBXtra’s top-end version provides unlimited call queuing and other call center niceties that Response Point has no response FOR.  Advantage: PBXtra.