Microsoft and Unisys Offer Free UC Test Drive

Unisys is offering enterprise customers a free test drive of Microsoft's UC services. Unisys is also working with Quintum Technologies to handle the VoIP to PSTN piece.

The trial service allows companies to "kick the tires"on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office LiveMeeting. It's an interesting tactic that echoes back to comments recently made by Nortel executives. Based upon Nortel and Microsoft's experiences in running a joint collaboration lab, enterprise customers want to try out UC services on a small scale. Once an enterprise is able to demonstrate the value of UC implementation, it typically goes from a smaller (50 to 500) seat deployment, to a much larger (factor of x10 or better) one.

Under the free trial service, implemented and managed by Unisys, organizations get the opportunity to evaluate the features available in the Microsoft unified communications suite, including email, calendaring and unified messaging, multi-party instant messaging, and voice and video conferencing. Up to 20 accounts can be established per customer, extending the trial experience to a larger group of individuals across the company. A trial lasts for 30 days and is set up through a Microsoft sales executive.

Unisys already offers email management and hosted messaging services to a number of corporations and handles more than two million Exchange mailboxes worldwide.

For more:
- Unisys free UC trial [1] press release

Related articles:
NXTcomm08: Microsoft Announces Hosted UC solution; Nortel delivers first [2]
Microsoft sets sights on UC call center market [3]