VoIPtel Blog

They are the guys we all just love to hate whether we use their products or not. But regardless of personal opinions, they have been instrumental in shaping our lives since Bill Gates licensed the MS-DOS to IBM far back in a previous millennium. So when they started talking about Unified Communication and their vision for the future I did like everybody else; I listened carefully. And behold, it was great! Sleek! Shining! Well integrated! Expensive! Ooops! You got that right, prohibitively expensive for a small business! Don’t believe me?

Well, take a look for yourself, do some simple math and ask your accountant if he/she will recommend buying it! Smaller organizations need a convincing reason to invest in Microsoft unified communications (UC) and telephony. They risk a lack of return on the investment.
The total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits from economies of scale.

Direct costs are typically about:
• $180 per user per month for a small organization of 50 users
• $60 per user per month for a medium organization of 500 users
• $30 per user per month for a large organization of 5,000 users

The major cost elements are:
• Software capital purchase, appropriately amortized
• Server hardware capital purchase, appropriately amortized
• Software support/maintenance costs
• Fully loaded employment of IT administrators and help desk staff

Let’s take a small company with 15 employees and add it up:
$180 per user per month * 15 = $2 700.00 pr month.

Oooha! Let’s start looking for alternatives! I checked out one solution some time before Christmas put together by Unison, at that time they had a Paid Version as well as an open source version. They have recently changed their strategy and are now giving away the Paid Version for free (GRATIS!) if you are willing to accept some sponsors ads on the top.

And if you opt for the NoAd version, $50 sounds a lot better than $180, right? Let’s add this one up as well:
$50 per user per year * 15 = $62.50 pr month.

That one taste a little better, I saved $2 637,50 each month on not buying the fancy stuff from Microsoft. But since I don’t really mind having a small banner on my UC, on second thought I go for the sponsored version. It’s faster and more convenient than putting together my own from open source components, I know it works and I can call support if I get into trouble.

Last but not least, Unison is not alone; check out what is available before you make your choice.