ShoreTel Blog
ShoreTel Web Services SDK: A Leap Forward in Integrating Communications Into Business Processes
Posted by ShoreTel on Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Authored by: Kevin Gavin, VP of Marketing
On the heels of announcing ShoreTel 9 yesterday, today we announced our new ShoreTel Web Services SDK, making it easier than ever for developers and companies to integrate our industry-leading UC capabilities into their business processes to foster increased collaboration, productivity and customer service levels. Read the full release here.
Why is this an important leap forward? Because with its distributed architecture, high availability, low TCO and UC features, ShoreTel 9 is the ideal open platform for building custom CEBP solutions, and the SDK allows companies, VARs and system integrators to use the programming language and platform of choice.
Whether it’s integrating phone calls and voicemail into a CRM application, bringing IM into the help desk workflow, adding automated phone calls (complete with ring-down capabilities) to customer service escalation, or hundreds of other applications, our Web Services SDK makes it a straightforward, hassle-free programming effort.
Labels: Product Updates
ShoreTel 9: The Future of Personalized Communications in Your Hand
Posted by ShoreTel on Monday, March 30, 2009
Authored by: Jeff Ridley, Sr. Director of Product Management
Do more with less has become the mantra du jour across organizations of all sizes and across all sectors. ShoreTel release 9 delivers the type of next generation enhancements organizations need to simplify administration, improve reliability and streamline processes.
Here’s a brief sampling of some of the many innovative features and enhanced capabilities available in this latest release:
Improved Reliability and Simplified Administration
N + 1 Reliability Improvements: This release simplifies the deployment of highly reliability communications through the enhancement of the system’s N+1 redundancy features. By simply adding a spare ShoreGear® Voice Switch at your headquarters, you can provide back-up services to all your remote locations. ShorePhone IP Telephones seamlessly fail over to these designated spare switches, without affecting currently active calls, providing high availability at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional PBXs.
Microsoft Active Directory Integration: Integration with Microsoft Active Directory streamlines the process of provisioning users in ShoreWare® Director and leverages their existing network credentials for authentication within ShoreWare applications. Change your Windows NT password, and it automatically is mapped to your ShoreTel applications. Just another thing you no longer have to worry about.
Enhanced System Security: Customers requiring enhanced network security can take advantage of two new features in this release: 802.1x based network authentication in ShorePhone IP Telephones and 128 bit AES media encryption, which provides standards-based, state-of-the-art protection against eavesdropping.
Improved End User Ease of Use
Personalize Call Handling: A powerful new addition to the ShoreWare Call Manager suite is the Personalized Call Handling feature. Users can define rules on how they would like to have incoming calls treated, regardless of whether the ShoreWare Call Manager application is running. When a call arrives from one of your personal VIP’s, it can be sent to directly to your mobile phone. But when a call arrives from someone on the less important list, they can be sent right to voicemail.
Changing Office Anywhere and Call Handling Modes Based on Location: Devices with built-in GPS that allow third-party applications to access GPS data can leverage ShoreWare Mobile Call Manager’s new Location Based Services (LBS) to define waypoints that trigger automatic changes to Call Handling Mode and Office Anywhere settings, based on the location of the mobile phone. This gives you automatic control of how calls are handled. For example, if your home time is private time, you can set the Mobile Call Manager to automatically set your phone in “out of the office” mode and have all your calls forwarded to voicemail just by driving up into your driveway.
Multitasking at Work with Phone Calls and Instant Messages: In this release, we have expanded the Instant Messaging features of the Professional Call Manager to give users more power. Instant messaging is the perfect tool for getting things done quickly when you are on the phone. With ShoreTel 9, users can expand a standard two-party IM session by adding participants as needed from a list that shows their presence, and provides an actionable menu. What’s more, the new Tabbed Chat interface permits users to keep track of multiple conversations in a single window, rather than juggling several floating windows.
Eliminating Voicemail Tag: Few things in life are more frustrating than a rousing game of voicemail tag. You leave a message, miss their call back, and find yourself leaving a message again. With ShoreTel 9, users can avoid voicemail tag by setting an alert when they see that their colleague in the enterprise, or at a remote office, is on the phone. When the person they need becomes available (signaled by a change in their presence status) a notification appears to let you know. Simply press the call button and you’re connected.
For more information on these features, and details on the other enhancements available with this latest release, contact your local ShoreTel partner.
Labels: Product Updates
ShoreTel Prepares to Lead the Call at VoiceCon Orlando 2009
Posted by ShoreTel on Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Authored by: Kevin Gavin, VP of Marketing
With just a few days left, the ShoreTel team has been diligently adding the final touches to our much-anticipated activities at the upcoming VoiceCon Orlando conference, from March 30th to April 2nd.
VoiceCon is one of the pre-eminent Unified Communication conferences in the country and a key theme at the Orlando 2009 event is the challenges around IP Telephony implementation. The ShoreTel team is looking forward to meeting with conference participants and demonstrating how the brilliantly simple ShoreTel UC system effectively addresses these challenges, while helping organizations easily boost productivity and reduce costs.
Not only is ShoreTel exhibiting at VoiceCon Orlando in Booth #909, but ShoreTel representatives and ShoreTel customers will be actively participating in several break-out sessions throughout the event.
To find out more about the latest in UC join us at the following presentations:
- Monday March 30, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM – “IP Telephony System RFP: Who Delivers the Goods”. ShoreTel Speaker: Jeff Ridley – Director of Product Management
- Wednesday, April 1, 2:30-3:45 PM – “Leveraging VOIP for UC”. ShoreTel Speaker: Kevin Gavin – Vice President of Marketing
- Wednesday, April 1, 2:30-3:45 PM – “Hardphones, Softphones and Next-Gen Systems”. ShoreTel Speaker: Bernard Gutnick – Senior Director of Product Marketing
- Thursday, April 2, 11:30-12:30 PM – “VoiceCon Summit - User Forum”. ShoreTel Customer: Robert Butler, Hay Group
In the meantime, stay tuned for additional VoiceCon updates, and some exciting ShoreTel announcements at the show. This event promises to be an eye-opener, and we are looking forward to seeing the latest from all the players in the UC space. Hope to see you there!
Labels: Event
How ShoreTel Helped WSECU (Washington State Employee Credit Union) with their UC Needs
Posted by ShoreTel on Monday, March 23, 2009
Authored by: Kevin Gavin, VP of Marketing
What do our customers want to get from their UC system? Simple, cost-effective yet superior communications solutions. For the financial services industry, increased competition from rivals and expectations of high-quality customer service, all while having to increase shareholder values means that these organizations have to do more than ever.
ShoreTel has solutions aimed at this market that allow for improved customer service, ensure business continuity, streamline resource management and cost control, and increase overall business performance.
Recently one of our customers – Tony Hildesheim of Washington State Employee Credit Union (WSECU) – sat down with ShoreTel to talk about how our solutions helped his organization reach its communications – and ultimately, its business – objectives. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUL-dJXr7U0&eurl=
Labels: Customer Experiences
Collaboration without Frustration
Posted by ShoreTel on Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Authored by: Bernard Gutnick, Sr. Director Product Marketing
Have you ever been on a call, and wanted to share your desktop, but didn’t want to go through the effort of setting up a collaboration session with a hosted service? Not to mention getting an earful from the CFO about what you’re spending every month for conferencing. You’ve heard it before – “I’d like to show you this presentation. Let’s do web collaboration. Good idea! What’s the bridge number? What’s the web address? How does this work?” That’s not collaboration…that’s frustration!
Companies are constantly looking for ways to increase the quality and efficiency of group collaboration, without spending a fortune, and without wasting time to make it happen. In today’s current workforce climate where remote and multi-location settings is more common than ever, a solution with simplicity at the heart of the solution is the key. ShoreTel’s Call Manager client software with integrated Converged Conferencing is the ideal solution for remote employees. Just call someone, either with the telephone, or via the Call Manager client’s capabilities such as contacts and enterprise directory. Once connected, select Start Bridge Conference. Just a few simple clicks later, and the other person has full view of your computer screen. Current work environments demand that technologies bring convenience and ease-of-use. ShoreTel provides just that.
Labels: Customer Experiences, Product Updates
ShoreTel Wins Prestigious Members Choice Award 2009
Posted by ShoreTel on Thursday, March 05, 2009
Authored by: Kevin Gavin, VP of Marketing
Adding kudos to our rapidly growing awards page is becoming a regular task here at ShoreTel, as understanding of ShoreTel’s easy-to-manage, IP-based communications system continues to spread.
Our latest award from the Telecom Association, a professional membership organization of 3,200 telecom distributors, honors our IP-PBX system with the title "Members Choice"—the winning IP-PBX solution in the Top 10 category. This top award is no minor achievement, according to TA founder Dan Baldwin, who shares that members are “fairly stingy with their votes and only vote for those providers they feel are doing an exceptional job, one that is far above the norm for service providers in the category.”
As ShoreTel continues to expand both its reseller partner and technology partner base, we consistently strive to find partners who share our commitment to world-class customer service and product excellence. When these partners return the compliment by stating for the public record that they feel we are doing the best job in our category and setting the standard for excellence, we know we are offering our customers the best of both possible
Labels: Awards