The server covers all of the communications bases and offers an array of capabilities, such as:

• IP PBX:  Call center-class IP-PBX built in, with patented scaling technology

• Directory/Contacts: LDAP with global, departmental and personal address books

• E-Mail/E-Mail Security: High-performance e-mail server with anti-virus and anti-spam built in

• Instant Messaging: Integrated XMPP-based instant message and presence server

• Calendar Server: Advanced CalDAV-based calendaring with group scheduling

• Control Panel: A single administrative control application for corporate directory, telephone, e-mail and other features.

Arguably, the most important consideration here is that all of those features require only a single server and are all preintegrated to work with each other using a single management console. That should reduce deployment time and maintenance chores significantly, not to mention that initial deployment costs would be much lower than competitive solutions.

While Unison Server does cover the basics quite well, there is room for improvement. For example, the product does not offer support or integration for desktop videoconferencing solutions, a capability that is getting more and more important. In addition, administrators will find that support for Active Directory is limited; the product relies on LDAP instead. Active Directory support (beyond just LDAP synchronization) could speed up installation and simplify management much more.

Support for Skype would be a welcome feature for small businesses, many of which are considering the cost savings offered by Skype’s business VOIP services. The server does not offer a Web client either; seeing support for something akin to Microsoft’s OWA (Outlook Web Access) could make the product very suitable for traveling workers.

Currently, Unison Server only supports Unison’s proprietary “fat” client, which is available for Windows and Ubuntu; there is no Mac support at this time. The product offers very limited support for mobile devices (or PDAs) and their related server products, such as GOOD messaging and BlackBerry Enterprise Server. A savvy integrator could rig something up to overcome that problem by using POP e-mail or IMAP integration. The lack of PDA support extends to calendaring also. Perhaps Unison could consider setting up synchronization with Google’s calendar service (or one of the other hosted calendars) to overcome that problem.