Unison Brings Harmony to Unified Communications - Unison Desktop
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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.
