VoxOx Review: Unified Messaging

VoxOx is a unified communication application that combines your Phone, video conferencing, Instant Messaging, Text Messaging, Social Networking Accounts, your email and file sharing services in one place. In other words it’s like Skype + Xoopit with a side order of Trillian.

I decided to test it out to see what it’s like for international users (I’m located in Uganda) and much to my surprise it’s incredibly robust and does pretty much everything it claims it does.

Mashable had the scoop…

Other key features of VoxOx include a unified meta address book which contains contacts from all the various services and networks; VoIP telephony with two initial hours of free talk time (Mashable readers get 1200 minutes, more on that below), inbound/outbound calls, voicemail, call forwarding, inbound faxing, two-way texting, and even a landline replacement (if you’re so inclined). It supports Windows and Mac based machines, and support for Ubuntu, Debian and mobile is coming soon.

It’s hard to find what’s missing here; it’s like Trillian and Skype in one with some sugar on top. Of course, the application itself needs to prove that it’s reliable, stable and at least as simple to use as Skype, or it’ll be hard to create converts from that immensely popular desktop VoIP solution.

For all the cool things VoxOx does, the aesthetic of their website and app UI is awful. If you’re a graphic designer who’s looking for work hit them with a proposal, they’d be remiss not to accept.

Using VoxOx

I downloaded VoxOx over night, the file for OSX was about 64MB. For me in Uganda that took about two hours, Installation was a breeze and VoxOX began walking me through it’s set-up Wizard. This included linking my IM accounts and social networks to the tool.

Unfortunately, a number of the features they boast about on their website aren’t active yet and remain grey’ed out. For instance, the only Social Network I could get it to work with was Facebook; Myspace and LinkedIn are there but apparently aren’t active yet.

International Users

If you live outside the U.S. don’t fret at all. VoxOx, like Skype, works just as well overseas as it does in the states. I used it to call and text my Uganda mobile with no trouble at all. VoxOX gives you a number when you sign up for the service, unlike Skype which makes you pay for one. Missed calls can be forwarded to your landline or mobile phones. These features don’t work for international users. In the image below you can see VoxOx is trying to add a “+1″ to my number because it wants me to be based out of the US.

Conclusion

In conclusion, VoxOx is a viable alternative to Skype especially for international users. If they can integrate more IM networks and micromessaging tools like Twitter, Laconica, Pownce and Jaiku then they’ll seriously be in business. As an International blogger, having six windows (Skype, PownceMonkey, Facebook, TweetDeck, Twiterific, Adium) open for messaging really kills my bandwidth. I’ve always longed for a tool that would replace ALL of them and VoxOx promises that.

Really, the biggest disappointment is how the thing looks. Washed out black and green with bright red is ugly. If you quote any one part of this article, make it that sentence so the developers get the point and do something about it. With all the recent problems I’ve been having with Skype Spam have made me look for an alternative and VoxOx has my vote.