The VAR Guy

Until a few years ago, Erik Lagerway was a self-described open source and Apple Macintosh fan who avoided Microsoft’s famed “blue screen of death” at all costs. Now he has a new title, a new focus and a growing managed services business (called SMBphone) built around Microsoft ResponsePoint. Why did Lagerway dial up Microsoft’s VoIP system for small businesses? Here’s the scoop.

Lagerway (pictured) is a perpetual entrepreneur and his experience with VoIP dates back to 1994, “the real beginning of VoIP,” he says.

Now let’s fast forward to May 2008 (how’s that for cutting to the chase…), when a few of Lagerway’s colleagues said they needed new phone systems. One person asked Lagerway to evaluate Microsoft ResponsePoint. “I didn’t take a free [eval system],” recalls Lagerway. “I purchased the system from a VAR network, and did the evaluation on my terms to see if it performed as advertised.”

Microsoft makes some lofty claims about ResponsePoint, which is designed for up to 50 users. Lagerway insists ResponsePoint lives up to its billing. “I’ve seen a few dozen PBXes in my time,” he says. “The issues have always been around ease of use; autoprovisioning; adds, moves and changes. ResponsePoint nails those issues to a point where anyone who understands [Microsoft] Outlook can use ResponsePoint.”

Birth of a Service Provider

Sensing a market opportunity, Lagerway in October 2008 launched SMBphone to be both a VAR and a service provider. By November 2008, SMBphone was meeting with Microsoft to partner up. In addition to reselling ResponsePoint, SMBphone offers ResponsePoint customers managed VoIP services. Those services, as you may have guessed, generate recurring monthly revenues for SMBphone.

“You can buy everything from us and in  five minutes have an operational phone system,” quips Lagerway.

Calling for Other Options?

Admittedly, The VAR Guy spends considerable time writing about unified communications solutions from a range of companies. And our resident blogger has also documented the rise of Asterisk — the open source IP PBX most often associated with Digium.

But Lagerway says he isn’t looking to sell Asterisk. “When you build a network and start supporting all types of PBXes, you start having interoperability issues,” asserts Lagerway. “We want to keep it simple for everyone and show dedication to the cause. We’re not doing anything but ResponsePoint.”

Full disclosure: The VAR Guy first heard about SMBphone from Rex Backman, a senior business development manager on the Microsoft ResponsePoint team. Vendors pitch sources to  The VAR Guy all the time. In this case,  Lagerway and SMBphone seemed to have quite a story to share.

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