Microsoft Small Business Summit Kicks Off

The Microsoft Small Business Summit has begun today and will take place over the next 4 days. Online sessions will be available, with about 200,000 expected to attend.

Over 50 industry experts are scheduled to present. Microsoft will also reveal some new small business products.

In fact, they have already announced that Service Pack 1 (SP1) for its Microsoft Response Point phone system will be available this summer via free 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," says Huang.

Small business research firm Access Markets International estimates that VoIP can save a business with between 10 and 19 employees about $8,000 in one year. Luckily, SP1 will let businesses supplement their existing phone service with VoIP.

With SP1,  businesses will be able to use a local number, which was apparently not an available feature before. This will allow a business to maintain the appearance of a local company.

"Since the inception of the Small Business Summit, in 2006, we have delivered more than 20 products and services specifically designed to empower small-business owners," says Cindy Bates, general manager for U.S. Small Business at Microsoft.

"Recognizing that companies with 50 or fewer employees may have limited IT resources, we look to deliver customer-driven innovation and solutions that enable self-employed people at any stage of growth to focus on running their small business," added Bates. "Today marks another milestone of our efforts to work with small-business owners to bring the right solutions to market with the upcoming availability of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) on the Microsoft Response Point phone system."

For a full list of the expert sessions taking place as part of the Microsoft Small Business Summit, go here.