Unison Brings Harmony to Unified Communications - Desktop, Part 2
(
Page 5 of 5 )
That eliminates the need for a VOIP phone at the user’s desk or
location. The system also supports auto-forwarding incoming calls to
external phones (cell phones, VOIP phones and POTS lines) if needed
and can control incoming call handling, transferring calls
automatically to voice mail or other extensions.
Of course, all activity is logged, making it easy to track what is
going on in the system and how efficiently the system is being used.
Instant messaging is handled by Unison’s proprietary IM client, which
is integrated into the desktop. The nice thing about the IM application
is that it is intelligent about the users. In other words, the IM
client knows whether internal users are busy or are
available. For those looking to extend IM beyond the local users,
Unison offers an “Intelligent Presence” feature, which supports
communication with ICQ, Google Talk, MSN and Jabber.
Perhaps the only thing that could make the Unison Desktop better would
be to switch it over to a bunch of plug-ins for Microsoft Outlook. That
would allow users to further integrate other services into the
environment, ranging from auto-linking to SharePoint to synchronizing
content with popular social networking sites, such as LinkedIn or
Facebook. What’s more, some CRM applications look for Outlook
integration to be effective.
While the Unison Desktop is an excellent
application, the lack of integration with third-party offerings may be
its undoing. On the other hand, the lack of support for third-party
applications does tend to improve security, which is a very good thing,
considering that Unison integrates anti-virus and anti-spam technology
in its offering.
In brief, Unison does offer what many will consider a better path to
unified communications. Although the product does not offer everything
to everyone, very few products do. Unison’s Client Server offering has
several advantages over other players in the field, including a single
server architecture–which is easier to manage, deploy and back up to a
unified client that leaves little to be desired.
What’s more, the basic
affordability of the product and flexible deployments should help many
solution providers convert customers over to Unison’s products. Simply
put, Unison does what needs to be done with little fuss and muss, and
can only get better over time.
