Comparing business phone system functionality of Zultys MX vs Microsoft Teams phone

Business Communications Comparison

1. Overview

Zultys was developed as a business phone system with unified communications and collaboration features built around telephony. Microsoft Teams was developed as a collaboration platform, with phone system features later added to serve existing Microsoft 365 and Teams customers. Microsoft has made several unsuccessful attempts to deliver enterprise voice, including Voice for Exchange, Lync, and Skype for Business, before introducing the current Teams Phone capabilities. This difference in origin shapes the depth and integration of voice, messaging, and contact center capabilities in each platform.

Microsoft Teams is a strong collaboration and productivity platform widely adopted through Microsoft 365. Many organizations use it for chat, meetings, file sharing, and internal communication. When external business telephony, customer messaging (SMS/MMS), fax, web chat, and structured call handling are required, Teams Phone provides basic capabilities, while a dedicated unified communications platform such as Zultys is purpose-built for these needs.

Zultys offers a full business phone system and unified communications platform that can be deployed as pure cloud, on-premise, or hybrid. It integrates with Microsoft Teams so that users can continue working in the Teams interface while gaining advanced telephony, messaging, and contact center features.

2. Addressing Common Situations

“We already use Microsoft Teams”

Using Teams does not prevent adding stronger telephony and messaging. Zultys integrates with Teams through ZAC for Teams, which embeds Zultys call controls, SMS/MMS, call groups, voicemail handling, and other tools directly into the Teams interface. Users stay in Teams for daily work while handling business calls and messages powered by the Zultys system. External calling does not require an additional Microsoft Teams Phone license when using this integration. Presence and contact synchronization, SSO with Microsoft credentials, and the ability to keep using existing Teams collaboration features are supported.

“Microsoft support is fine”

Microsoft provides broad support for the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. For telephony-specific issues (call quality, routing, queues, SMS registration, number porting, or contact center features), many organizations find value in a communications vendor whose primary focus is voice and unified communications. Zultys offers 100% U.S.-based support with dedicated implementation engineers. This complements Microsoft support for the telephony layer.

3. Feature Comparison Summary

Capability	Zultys	Microsoft Teams Phone	Advantage
External voice calling	Native full PBX features	Available with Teams Phone + PSTN option	Zultys
Auto attendant / IVR	Multi-level AA and IVR; AI speech-enabled receptionist	Auto attendants available; limited depth for complex needs	Zultys
Call queues / ACD	Advanced ACD, skills-based and last-agent routing	Call queues available; advanced features typically require add-ons	Zultys
Supervisor tools	Native in Integrated Contact Center	Available via Queues app (requires Teams Premium)	Zultys
SMS	Full SMS; group/shared numbers; conversation stickiness	Limited to Calling Plan numbers; 1:1 plain text only	Zultys
MMS	Native MMS support	Not supported in native Teams SMS	Zultys
e-Fax	Integrated fax server in ZAC and call logs	No native fax; requires separate service	Zultys
Website WebChat	Native WebChat in ACD/ICC; queued with voice and SMS; handled in ZAC	No native website WebChat (former Live chat feature retired)	Zultys
Call recording	Automatic and on-demand (DVR-style)	Available; advanced recording often needs extra tools	Zultys
Long-term archiving	MX Archive: indefinite unified store for fax, VM, SMS, recordings, transcripts, CAD	No unified native archive for all interaction types	Zultys
Custom reporting	MX Report: query builder, custom templates, scheduled multi-format delivery	Pre-built reports + Power BI; scheduled custom delivery typically needs third-party	Zultys
Multimedia queue	Voice, web chat, SMS, and callbacks in unified queue	Primarily voice-focused; omnichannel requires third-party	Zultys
AI capabilities	AI Receptionist, transcription, sentiment analysis	Copilot and Phone Agent available as add-ons	Comparable / situational
Deployment options	Pure cloud, on-premise, or hybrid (same features)	Cloud (Microsoft 365)	Zultys
SIP device support	Standard SIP: broad compatibility with phones, paging, intercoms	Native phones use REST API, not SIP; many SIP devices incompatible	Zultys

Note: “Advantage” reflects relative strength for typical business telephony and customer-facing needs. Features subject to change.

4. SMS and MMS

Customer texting is a common requirement for appointment reminders, order updates, support follow-up, and two-way conversations. Zultys treats SMS/MMS as a native channel integrated with voice and contact center workflows.

Zultys SMS/MMS highlights

• Inbound and outbound SMS and MMS from individual user numbers, group numbers (Operator, ACD, ICC), or shared numbers.
• Agents can choose whether to send from their personal DID or the group/shared number for consistent branding.
• Conversation stickiness: when an agent replies on a shared or group number, subsequent replies from that contact route back to the same agent for a period of time.
• MMS supports images, videos, and other file types.
• Available in desktop ZAC, Web ZAC, Mobile ZAC, and inside Teams via ZAC for Teams.
• SMS/MMS can appear in the same multimedia queue as voice calls and web chat for contact center agents.

Microsoft Teams SMS (native)

Microsoft introduced native SMS for Teams Calling Plan users. Current documented limitations include:

• Available only with Microsoft Calling Plan numbers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) and Canada.
• One-to-one plain text only — no MMS, images, or file attachments.
• Not available on numbers connected via Operator Connect in the native feature.
• Requires 10DLC brand and campaign registration; default limit of 49 numbers per tenant without additional process.
• Intended for low-volume conversational use, not bulk or marketing campaigns.

Organizations needing MMS, shared team inboxes, group messaging, or SMS outside the supported regions and licensing models typically add a third-party SMS platform.

5. Website WebChat

Zultys includes native WebChat for ACD and ICC groups. Website visitors start a conversation via a widget on the company site. The chat is routed into the same multimedia queue as voice calls and SMS, so agents handle it in ZAC (desktop, web, or mobile) alongside other interactions. Transfers, suggested replies, and supervisor involvement are supported. Chats are archived with other records in MX Archive.

Microsoft Teams Phone does not offer a native website WebChat feature. A former Live chat widget that routed website conversations into Teams was retired in 2026 (new setups stopped in August 2026; the feature stopped working in October 2026). Organizations now need Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Copilot Studio, or a third-party solution for website chat.

6. Archiving and Long-Term Storage

Zultys provides MX Archive, a dedicated service that stores interaction records indefinitely on a separate secure server. This keeps the primary system performant while making historical records available for compliance, training, or reference. MX Archive stores voicemails, faxes, instant messages / SMS, automatically recorded calls and on-demand call recordings, Call Attached Data (CAD), transcripts (when AI features are enabled), and call detail records.

Records are accessible through the MX Archive Viewer. The service is available for pure cloud, virtual, and on-premise deployments, and one archive server can support multiple MX systems in a network.

Teams retains call logs (CDRs) indefinitely by default; organizations can apply Microsoft Purview retention policies to delete them after a defined period. Call recordings and transcripts are stored in OneDrive or SharePoint and are subject to default expiration rules (commonly 60–120 days unless extended by policy). Compliance-grade recording typically requires certified third-party solutions. Voicemail follows Microsoft 365 retention rules. Native Teams SMS is limited and does not include a built-in long-term archive comparable to voice records. There is no native fax capability, so fax is not archived within Teams.

7. Reporting and Analytics

Zultys includes MX Report, a Windows-based report writer designed for telephony and contact-center analytics. It offers a visual report editor that draws from more than 50 call detail record (CDR) fields and dedicated call-center / call-group fields, custom report templates, cradle-to-grave call reporting, support for Call Attached Data (CAD), and a report scheduler that runs as a Windows service. Scheduled reports can be delivered by email, copied to a local or network folder, or uploaded to FTP. Output formats include PDF, Excel, and CSV. Additional reports cover SMS, ZAC usage, web chat, presence states, conference sessions, and automatic callbacks. Reports can run against the live system or the MX Archive database.

The Teams Admin Center offers pre-built usage, PSTN, and activity reports that can be exported to CSV. Call Quality Dashboard (CQD) data can be analyzed in Power BI using Microsoft-provided templates. Voice Applications Historical Reports (Power BI) cover Auto Attendants, Call Queues, and Teams Phone Agent activity. These tools are useful for usage and quality analysis, but they do not include a native telephony-focused query builder or a simple scheduler that emails multi-format reports without additional tools or significant Power BI configuration.

8. Fax / e-Fax

Many industries (healthcare, legal, government, real estate, insurance) still rely on fax for compliance or workflow reasons. Zultys includes an integrated fax server as part of the platform. Users can send and receive faxes directly from the ZAC application without a physical fax machine. Incoming faxes can be viewed in ZAC, emailed, or transferred to other users with optional notes. Faxes appear in the user call log and contact center supervisor logs alongside calls, voicemails, recordings, and transcripts.

Microsoft Teams does not provide native fax services. Organizations that need fax must maintain a separate fax solution (cloud fax provider, traditional fax server, or other workaround). This creates a second system for users and administrators to manage and keeps fax history separate from the Teams call history.

9. Contact Center and Device Compatibility

Zultys Integrated Contact Center (ICC) includes skills-based, priority, time-of-day, and last-agent routing; a multimedia queue that can include voice calls, web chat, SMS, and callbacks in arrival order; Call Attached Data (CAD); supervisor tools (real-time wallboard, silent monitor, whisper, and barge-in); and automatic and on-demand recording with indefinite archiving options.

Teams Phone includes auto attendants and call queues suitable for many small-to-medium departmental needs. Supervisor monitor/whisper/barge/takeover is available through the Queues app when Teams Premium is also licensed. Larger or more complex contact center requirements are commonly addressed with certified third-party contact center solutions that integrate with Teams.

Zultys is a standards-based SIP platform, so it works with a wide range of desk phones, paging adapters, video door intercoms, analog gateways, and other SIP devices from multiple manufacturers. Native Teams desk phones and most Teams-certified endpoints use Microsoft’s REST APIs and Teams-specific protocols rather than SIP. As a result, many modern SIP phones, paging systems, and intercoms that work with conventional business phone systems are not compatible with Teams without additional gateways or workarounds.

10. Summary

Microsoft Teams remains an excellent choice for collaboration, meetings, and productivity within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. For organizations that also need robust external telephony, native SMS/MMS, integrated fax, website WebChat, and contact center features, Zultys provides a purpose-built platform that integrates with Teams.

• Native website WebChat queued with voice and SMS.
• Full SMS/MMS with group numbers and conversation stickiness.
• Integrated e-fax in the same workflows as voice.
• MX Archive and MX Report for indefinite storage and custom scheduled reporting.
• Broad SIP device support and flexible deployment (cloud, on-prem, hybrid).
• 100% U.S.-based telephony-focused support.

This comparison is based on publicly available information as of October 2026. Features are subject to change.