ShoreTel Blog
Open the way to business agility
Posted by ShoreTel on Thursday, July 23, 2009
Authored by: Steve Weinstock, Senior Technology Partner Program Manager
Business agility—the ability to rapidly and cost-effectively adapt to changes in the business environment—depends in large part on a flexible workforce and a dynamic technology infrastructure. By offering choice based on an open ecosystem and the richness of unified communications, ShoreTel offers flexibility and performance designed for the dynamic IP age.
A recent example of ShoreTel choice is Polycom’s KIRK DECT solutions. Polycom leveraged ShoreTel’s SIP interface to allow their DECT handsets to become fully featured ShoreTel extensions. And because Polycom is a certified technology partner, customers can count on these solutions to be interoperable today, tomorrow, next year, and well into the future.
The ability to communicate with other business constituents in a manner that is the most effective and efficient should be the Holy Grail of UC. Only systems that are truly open can offer rapid and cost-effective business agility.
Gone are the days of closed proprietary systems. Today’s UC solutions must work and be interoperable with other vendor’s solutions – hardware, software and services. Open interfaces, solutions and ecosystems are a reality and are demanded from IT professionals and end-users alike.
ShoreTel embraces this notion and has proactively created an ecosystem of technology partners to deliver solutions which provide our reseller partners, customers and end users flexibility or choice.
Polycom’s phones (DECT, Wi-Fi and conferencing), as well as the other mobility solutions in ShoreTel’s ecosystem all leveraging SIP, provide users choice – the choice to manage their communications the way they want. Brilliantly Simple.
Learn more about ShoreTel's Technology Partner Program.
Labels: Product Updates
Avaya and Nortel: What happens to the Nortel End Users?
Posted by ShoreTel on Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Authored by: John W. Combs, CEO
There has been a huge volume of correspondence about the potential acquisition of Nortel’s enterprise business by Avaya for $475M, and much speculation around why the deal is priced so low, how easily can the two distinct cultures be assimilated and if this isn’t just a case of two sinking ships lashing themselves together to stay afloat as they both lose market share. Below is an excerpt from a financial analyst.
Barclays Capital Comm Equipment Research
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“Valuation Appears Modest A $475M price represents around 0.2x-0.3x calendar 2010 sales assuming roughly 20%+ sales decline in 2009.” - Jeff Kvaal
However intriguing these questions may be to the industry in general, the key questions that everyone seems to be overlooking are: What happens to existing Nortel customers? Will they be upgraded to new UC offerings over time? Will the product roadmap be maintained?
Customers buy a communications system with the expectation that it will last more than 10 years. During this period they expect the supplier to continue to offer new enhancements and upgrades as they become available. For Nortel customers who have just made a significant investment in a new system, the outlook seems to be troublingly uncertain. The following is from the Avaya Q & A document released as part of the acquisition announcement:
Q8. What will the product roadmap be? What is Avaya keeping? How will the Nortel services business be integrated with Avaya’s?
A8: We cannot answer questions about the product or services portfolios or other integration issues at this early stage. Both companies are committed to open standards, rather than proprietary architectures. Avaya is committed to the Avaya Aura architecture which allows customers to protect their technology investments using a “wrap and extend” migration strategy. This allows for graceful product migration at the customer’s desired pace.
Translated into simple English for current Nortel customers, this means that they will not enhance your system, but work to sell you to a new Avaya platform. This is not surprising. As CEO of a very successful IP telephony/unified communications company, I understand that it is difficult to impossible to invest in the engineering resources required to maintain two separate products.
Based on my experience, here is a synopsis of what I believe current Nortel customers should expect to experience:
1. Firstly, you will receive a communication of support that omits any true commitments.
2. If you press to understand their roadmap commitments, you will find there are none. You should expect that the majority of the Nortel engineers will be let go – keeping a skeleton crew to provide ‘break fix’ support.
3. After the dust settles, you will be notified of plans to discontinue the Nortel line. Smallest customers first – larger customers as a follow on. This notification will be accompanied with a proposal to replace your current Nortel with a Avaya product.
I can’t tell you exactly when, but you can be sure of the order of events, and so I encourage all Nortel customers to investigate your options early. Many Nortel customers already have converted to ShoreTel, and are experiencing the benefits of lowering their total cost of ownership and boosting productivity on a reliable platform designed for the long haul.
ShoreTel’s brilliantly simple system was built smart – on an IP platform – without a monolithic TDM legacy to inhibit its design. That provides a huge competitive advantage both to us and our customers.
Labels: Market Perspective
ShoreTel bears fruit for Ready Pac
Posted by ShoreTel on Friday, July 17, 2009
Authored by: Gina Jacobs, Sr. Director of Marketing Communications
There’s an interesting concept in economics, known as opportunity cost. In simple terms, it’s defined as the value of the path not taken when deciding between mutually exclusive choices.
For instance, the opportunity cost of eating fast food for lunch could be the health benefits of eating salad instead. For Ready Pac Produce, the opportunity cost of hobbling along on an aging PBX system was high call charges and support fees, and the risk of delays in the supply chain due to communication outages.
When Ready Pac management made the decision to switch to a modern IP-based communications system, they looked carefully at several major vendors before choosing ShoreTel. They recognized that switching to a ShoreTel UC system was an important opportunity for cost savings, high availability and improved communications from the field to the dinner table.
As a result, the company is saving almost $18,000 a month in call and support costs. And equally importantly, they are helping to make sure that everyone has a choice between fast food and a healthy salad.
Read more about how ShoreTel is helping Ready Pac realize fresh savings, or contact us to learn how ShoreTel can help you take a leaf out of their book.
Labels: Customer Experiences
ShoreTel teams with IBM to ensure simplicity, not size, matters
Posted by ShoreTel on Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Authored by: John W. Combs, CEO
The announcement of an important new teaming agreement between ShoreTel and IBM represents a major milestone in the evolution of unified communications (UC). Not only is the innovative and technology behind the two companies’ powerful business communications and collaboration tools raising the bar on performance and ease of use, but for the first time, it’s putting a key competitive advantage in the hands of small and midsize businesses worldwide.
As another step forward in ShoreTel’s commitment to bring affordable, brilliantly simple UC solutions to organizations of all sizes, ShoreTel is leveraging the newly announced Lotus Foundations Reach environment, and adding its easy-to-use IP telephony capabilities through the intuitive ShoreTel Director Management platform.
The result is an out-of-the-box solution that customizes and extends IBM Lotus Sametime UC and collaboration capabilities, without requiring a dedicated enterprise administrator.
This unique offering will deliver enterprise-class reliability, rapid scalability and lower IT costs to the SMB market, opening the door to easy-to-manage, efficient and cost-effective tools that were once limited to larger enterprises.
By taking out complexity and focusing on meeting business needs with features and functionality that are easy for end-users to adopt, modern tools such as instant messaging, file sharing and click to call that keep companies ahead of the competition, and telephony presence for greater accessibility, ShoreTel and IBM are offering growing businesses resources to help them move forward.
Stay tuned for more important milestones as ShoreTel’s brilliantly simple solutions continue to change the future of UC, and give organizations the freedom they need to get the job done.
Labels: Market Perspective
Latest News on ShoreTel Blog Talk Radio
Posted by ShoreTel on Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Authored by: Kevin Gavin, VP Marketing
ShoreTel is making an exciting announcement on Wednesday morning, and I invite you to tune into ShoreTel’s Blog Talk Radio station tomorrow from 11:00 – 11:15 am PT/ 2:00 – 2:15 pm ET to get more details about it. A strategic ShoreTel partner – who will be revealed tomorrow – and I will be talking through the news more in depth. We believe you’ll share our excitement, as the news is not only an industry first but also greatly impacts the SMB market. If you’re unable to make the live show, an archived version will be available for future listening. Hope you tune in!
Labels: Event
ShoreTel teams up with Australia’s largest telecommunications company
Posted by ShoreTel on Friday, July 10, 2009
Authored by: Vasili Triant, Managing Director, Southeast Asia
In any discussion around the main driving forces in the Australian telecommunications industry, one company always comes to mind: Telstra.
Telstra is Australia’s largest and most influential telecommunications company, providing local and long distance telephone services, mobile services, dialup, wireless, DSL and cable internet access, and more than 30 years’ experience in the business. Now, they have teamed up with ShoreTel to deliver our brilliantly simple unified communications solutions to businesses across the country.
The Telstra Business System program, which offers ShoreTel UC solutions, is unique in providing a convenient single point of contact for its customers. This means it is accountable for every aspect of communications management, including local expert support, single billing and flexible payment options.
ShoreTel joined the Telstra Business Systems program through a recommendation by Aria Technologies, one of our local ShoreTel distributors. The folks at Aria Technologies have been working closely with us over the last year, and recommended our ShoreTel products to Telstra because of their high regard for our exceptional levels of customer satisfaction, system performance and cost-effectiveness.
Regardless of deployment size, ShoreTel offers the industry’s lowest total cost of ownership, and during tough times, this is an important consideration for organizations looking for solutions that help lower costs and enhance workplace productivity.
I believe this new and exciting partnership with Telstra reflects the ShoreTel UC system’s growing popularity as a brilliantly simple alternative to complex, resource-intensive UC systems offered by other vendors, and is a win-win for ShoreTel and Australian businesses.
Labels: Market Perspective