The real meat and potatoes of Unison’s solution comes from the fat client, aptly named the Unison Desktop. The Desktop runs on multiple versions of Windows and under the Ubuntu distribution of Linux.

What users will initially notice about the Unison Desktop is how much it resembles Outlook. Unison went with the look and feel of Microsoft’s Outlook to ease user adoption and reduce training needs.

Looking a little closer at the desktop, users will notice some additional panels (or panes) that provide the information for unified communications. There is a panel that indicates the status of other users, such as “on the phone” or “busy.” That panel helps when transferring calls or when collaborating internally.

As far as scheduling and e-mail are concerned, the desktop faithfully mimics Outlook.

Where users will notice a big difference is with telephone communications. Here, the desktop offers multiple avenues to call others, forward calls or set up conference calls. The telephone option features the ability to forward all incoming calls to a POTS line, VOIP line or cell phone. That could potentially eliminate the need for a VOIP phone at the desktop. What’s more, the Desktop can “forward” and “initiate” calls to another extension or number. In other words, when a user clicks on a phone number, the Unison Server PBX will dial that number and the user’s cell phone (or POTS line) concurrently and then auto-conference the call.