ShoreTel 12: UC Simplified
By: Laurent Dinard, Sr. Product ManagerTwice the capacity. Enhanced collaboration tool. Mass adoption across the enterprise. It’s ShoreTel 12. Unified Communications just got simplified for companies of all sizes.
This morning at Interop, we announced the release of ShoreTel 12 – the latest version of our award-winning UC software. It is now available for new customer orders and will ship before the end of the second quarter.
Designed to take advantage of the uptick in enterprise spending on audio conferencing, Web conferencing and Instant Messaging (IM), ShoreTel 12 gives end users easy access to several new collaborative and productivity-enhancing features – all available at your fingertips.
Enabling collaboration can now be completed in less than 10 minutes. Add a new user with one simple click, for example. And, with ShoreTel Director, the intuitive browser-based admin interface, the system can be distributed across an organization of up to 20,000 local or remote users. But the excitement doesn’t stop there:
- Collaboration Tools for Every Employee: Users are empowered to increase collaboration with integrated audio conferencing, Web conferencing and IM incorporated into its core architecture, simplifying deployment and management of the system.
- Support for Large Enterprises: ShoreTel 12 doubles the capacity from its latest software release and allows enterprise customers of up to 20,000 users to be supported under a single image.
- Microsoft Outlook 2010 Integration: Users can schedule and join audio conferences with one-click directly on the Microsoft Outlook feature menu. Presence indications are also available within Microsoft Outlook, allowing users to initiate a call or IM conversation and flag for presence changes.
- Microsoft Exchange 2010 Integration: ShoreTel 12 adds Microsoft Exchange 2010 as an option to act as Unified Messaging Server, allowing customers to leverage any existing investment in Microsoft Exchange deployments.
- Native Apple Macintosh User Support: In support of the rapidly growing number of Apple Macintosh users in the enterprise, ShoreTel 12 now features a native Mac application called ShoreTel Communicator for Mac.
- Support for Mobile Users: ShoreTel Communicator now extends UC features to support mobile users on the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry and other popular mobile devices.
Want to see what else ShoreTel’s got to offer? Check out our booth (#933) if you’re at Interop this week, or stay tuned to the blog and @shoretel on Twitter.
Do the Outlook/Exchange integration features support externally hosted Exchange instances, like Office 365 or BPOS?
Let’s not get too excited about v12. If you happen to be running ST v11.1 you CANNOT upgrade to v12 – period. So if you need support for CURRENT Microsoft OS’s and application suites (Office/Outlook 2010) you are OUT OF LUCK until version 12.1.
Given ShoreTel’s horrific performance on version upgrades as of late, if you’re running 11.1 I wouldn’t recommend holding your breath for v12.1. But hey, what’s the rush? Office 2010 has only been in RTM for a year.
Yes, the Outlook features are not dependent on Exchange at all, thus using Exchange as a hosted or on premise solution does not impact the user experience.
[...] live theatre presentation and demonstration stations. We selected Interop for the global launch of ShoreTel 12 – our most prominent UC release to date, with new integrated instant messaging, conferencing and [...]
Bryce. It is correct that you cannot upgrade from a minor release (a dot 1 or dot 2) to a major release. This is the result of an approach where we work on both the next major and minor releases at the same time. For example we were building Release 12 at the same time we were working on 11.1 and 11.2. When Release 12 ships, it doesn’t include the features that were in 11.1 and 11.2 because they were made after we started 12. So an upgrade from 11.2 to 12 isn’t supported. Instead, a customer on 11.X would upgrade to 12.1 where all of the minor release features are merged back together. Our goal is to get smaller features done while also working on the larger features. I do understand however, that it all comes down to a specific need and if the feature you need is in 12 – and you are currently using 11.1 – it is frustrating that you can’t get it right way.
For your specific case, one option might be to consider being an early adopter of 12.1 in our beta trial program. It’s an option that may or may not work for you and your business but something I thought would be worth considering. I can be reached at jridley@shoretel.com and will be happy to get you in touch with the field trials team or discuss other features as needed.
[...] am pleased to report that I fulfilled my mission. ShoreTel 12 was launched five months [...]