* Unison Technologies has developed an interesting unified communications technology
Unison Technologies is a New York-based developer of an interesting unified communications technology that combines e-mail, PBX functionality, instant messaging and directory services into a single Linux server. The Unison Server includes these functions, plus antivirus and antispam capabilities, calendar functionality, a contact database and user presence management.
The Unison Desktop is a Windows-based application that incorporates e-mail, a soft phone, calendar, contacts database, click-to-conference capabilities and user presence into an integrated desktop client. A Linux client is planned for the future. Plus, the Unison Server integrates mobile devices and IP telephones.
Unison’s offerings are built on open source technology, incorporating a variety of available technologies including MySQL; Clam Antivirus; the Thunderbird 2 e-mail client; MSN Transport that allows MSN Messenger and Jabber users to communicate; and FreeRADIUS, among many other open source offerings.
Unison is still in beta and was just announced last week at CeBIT. The Server and Client components are available for download at the Unison Web site.
Unison is focused on the small and midsized business sector, although its technology may work for larger enterprises, as well. It’s difficult to gauge the success of the offering so early after introduction, but the offering seems as though it will resonate quite nicely with smaller organizations that won’t have to scrap significant investments in legacy PBX or e-mail server technology in order to deploy Unison. Plus, given that a complete unified communications capability can be deployed in a single server, all communications can be backed up to a single data store, and IT investments in managing the infrastructure should be lower than if separate servers are managed, Unison should provide compelling cost of ownership over the long run.
