Start-up debuts free, ad-supported Microsoft Exchange replacement

Computerworld - Unison Technologies Inc. is offering its Linux-based unified communications software at no charge to small and midsize companies that are willing to share their employees' eyeballs and attention spans with advertisers.

New York-based Unison's client-server software package includes Internet telephony, e-mail, instant messaging and shared contact and calendar features, thus mimicking most of the key features of Microsoft Exchange, said Rurik Bradbury, Unison's chief marketing officer. Bradbury noted the Unison software also offers voice telephony capabilities similar to those in Microsoft Corp.'s Office Communication Server (OCS).

According to a Unison-sponsored study by Ferris Research, which specializes in messaging and content control technologies, a 50-person company running Microsoft Exchange and OCS in its data center would pay about $180 per user per month. In comparison, it would cost nothing to use Unison's comparable software, which runs on Red Hat or Ubuntu Linux servers and installs as a matching Outlook-like client on Windows desktop or notebook PCs.

Advertisements will appear when the Unison client starts up, as well as in page-wide banner ads, said Bradbury. The advertising will tout only B2B goods and services and won't "be too intrusive, since our app is the kind people keep open several hours a day, and we know people have to work," he added.

Customers can get an ad-free version of Unison for $50 per user per year. A hosted version will be available next year, Bradbury said.

"It's a pretty nice unified communications product," said Michael Osterman, an analyst at Osterman Research Inc. "I'm quite impressed."

Unison has 4,000 companies testing its software, said Bradbury, who acknowledged that using a Web-hosted version of Exchange is more price-competitive than running Microsoft Exchange and OCS in a data center. Hosted Exchange offerings typically run about $10 per user per month, and they have enjoyed success in small and midsize firms. Third-party firms have long hosted Exchange for customers, and Microsoft last month unveiled its own hosted version.

Osterman, however, thinks that Unison software will prove more attractive than the hosted Exchange offering to companies with 50 to 250 employees, those that have already dumped their PBX boxes for unified communications, and those in customer-centric industries such as law and engineering.

The Unison software appears easy enough for non-Exchange or Linux experts to manage, he said. And while losing tight integration with Microsoft Office and Sharepoint "may be a drawback for some [small and midsize companies], it won't be for most," he said.

Unison's founders and several top executives, including CEO Michael Choupak, come from Intermedia.net Inc., which hosts Exchange for some 300,000 users. Intermedia CEO Serguei Sofinski noted that there are financial arrangements between his firm and Unison, but he declined to elaborate.

Bradbury added that the start-up is well-funded by "East Coast parties" but also declined to elaborate.

Read more about software in Computerworld's Software Knowledge Center.