So we’re getting excited about working with Microsoft on their new Response Point product line. We have a number of other “appliance” type solutions but Response Point is a bit different in that we feel it might be a good fit for SMB customers who do not have a tremendous amount of IT resources in house. Since it’s Microsoft, the user interface should be a bit more comfortable to lay people who might not be comfortable performing basic administration on a typical IP PBX.

I’m more of a Linux guy….but I have been thinking about Microsoft as of late, and it dawned on me that they should consider bringing back Clippy and putting him to work inside the Response Point user interface. For those of you not familiar with Clippy….Clippy is the little paperclip with the soulful eyes and the Groucho eyebrows. The electronic assistant who politely offered hints for using Microsoft Office software. Clippy was demoted (downsized, pinkslipped, etc.) when Microsoft released Office XP.

From the Microsoft press release:

…after four years on-screen, Clippy will lose his starring role when Microsoft Office XP debuts on May 31. Clippy, the Office Assistant introduced in Office 97, has been demoted in Office XP. The wiry little assistant is turned off by default in Office XP, but diehard supporters can turn Clippy back on if they miss him.

“Office XP is so easy to use that Clippy is no longer necessary, or useful,” explained Lisa Gurry, a Microsoft product manager. “With new features like smart tags and Task Panes, Office XP enables people to get more out of the product than ever before. These new simplicity and ease-of-use improvements really make Clippy obsolete,” she said.

“He’s quite down in the dumps,” Gurry joked. “He has even started his own campaign to try to get his old job back, or find a new one.”

I think that the release of Microsoft’s new Response Point phone system is the perfect opportunity for Clippy to get back in action, helping a new generation of small business Unified Communications users navigate the hurdles of setting up and administering an IP PBX. Perhaps he could don a new moniker, we’ll call him SiPPy.

Need some help with your autoattendant? SiPPy can walk you through a basic setup wizard.

Having issues with call quality? Let SiPPy quickly analyze the call diagnostic logs on the Response Point PBX to determine potential problems with your network setup.

SiPPy would also make a great personal assistant for setting up conference calls, call appointment reminders, gentle reminders to update your outgoing voicemail message…etc.

Owning and maintaining an IP PBX, even a simplistic and seemingly user-friendly one, can be a daunting challenge for the non initiated small business, technological weekend warrior. Until setting up SIP trunks and find-me-follow-me rules becomes “old hat” for the average business user….I think there might be a solid employment opportunity here for Clippy…errr…..SiPPy.

Whether you woke up this morning excited or disappointed, you should be pleased that an Obama presidency strengthens the cause for Net Neutrality, which is a good thing for the VoIP industry. Jim Higdon at VoIP-News wrote an excellent, comprehensive piece that touches on the implications of net neutrality for the VoIP industry.

Senator, now President elect, Barack Obama is a strong proponent of net neutrality. Back in June 2007, John McCain expressed his opinion and non-support for net neutrality.

McCain appeared at the All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., and said he did not think government regulation of internet service providers to stop them from censoring, slowing down, or otherwise disrupting consumer’s access to the internet in order to stifle competitors or undesirable content was an appropriate solution.

“When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment,” he said, according to TheDailyBackground.com.

Later, McCain said: “I’m all for the government encouraging competition, but I’ve found over time that less government involvement is better.

In stark contrast….President elect Obama has positioned net neutrality as one of the cornerstones of his campaign platform.

Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.

If you are interested in learning more about the Obama plan to support net neutrality, you can check out a podcast from then Senator Obama from June 2006 below.

“It is because the Internet is a neutral platform that I can put out this podcast and transmit it over the Internet without having to go through any corporate media middleman. I can say what I want without censorship or without having to pay a special charge.

But the big telephone and cable companies want to change the Internet as we know it. They say that they want to create high speed lanes on the Internet and strike exclusive contractual agreements with Internet content providers for access to those high speed lanes.

Everyone who cannot pony up the cash will be relegated to the slow lanes.”