Unisys Offers Free Unified Communications Trial

• By Kurt Mackie
• 07/17/08

Unisys announced Monday that it is offering companies a free 30-day unified communications trial using Microsoft solutions. The offer is currently available through Microsoft's sales personnel.

The unified communications trial is designed to demonstrate Blue Bell, Pa.-based Unisys' integration capabilities.

"This trial lets us showcase our expertise in large-scale unified communications solutions on the Microsoft platform," said Gary Erickson, Unisys' vice president of business development for the Microsoft Alliance. "It also gives our clients an easy way to experiment with new collaboration tools enabled by Microsoft's unified communications technology stack."

The trial uses a combination of Microsoft's servers and cloud-based collaboration solutions:

• Exchange Server 2007 for e-mail, calendars and voicemail;
• Office Communication Server 2007 for voice and video, Web conferencing, presence and U.S. phone calls over the public switched telephone network; and
• Office Live Meeting for collaboration and Web conferencing over the Internet.

Trial participants can access up to 20 accounts. The system works across an enterprise, enabling collaboration by multiple parties via instant messaging, telephony and video conferencing.

Unisys works with a partner, Quintum Technologies, to assure the voice-over-IP aspects of the unified communications system -- a tricky aspect when trying to assure toll-quality voice for enterprises. Quintum supports the interoperability of voice and data networks and also fine tunes voice and video based on SIP and H.323 protocols.