The world of business communications and collaboration is changing at lightning speed. And almost every organization can benefit from Integrated Collaboration. These new tools are changing how work gets done and how customers or clients are served. The results are significant savings and efficiencies, as well as the potential for increased business growth.

IC brings a new set of tools to communications. Here are four top technologies:

§  Presence: Software can now show you who is logged into the network, where that person is, whether they are busy (e.g. on the phone, in a meeting, away from their desk, etc.), and if they are available for questions, assignments or collaboration. Presence also helps your employees avoid wasting time on phone calls or landing in voice mail.

§  Instant Messaging (IM): It is now possible to communicate quickly, without the disruption of a phone call, using instant messaging (the office version of texting). Quick IM chats can replace up to 30 percent of internal phone calls. Instant messaging is more flexible too: you can simultaneously IM with more than one person even if they are on the phone (e.g. checking facts while talking to a customer).

§  Virtual Meetings: These meetings are like being at the same table in the same room. These can be one‐on‐one meetings, where you and another person are looking at the same document while you are talking about it. You can even turn on video to be “in the same room.” These can be scheduled group conference calls, just as before, but now you can share presentations or documents, essentially from anywhere on the network.

§  Mobility: You can take these new tools on the road. Just as cell phones took voice calls on the road and smartphones took email on the road, you can now take IC on the road, having presence, IM, and virtual meetings from essentially anywhere.

Check out the white paper for additional information on integrated collaboration.

With the release of ShoreTel 11 come several changes to the ShoreTel system, including a name change of ShoreTel Call Manager to ShoreTel Communicator. The release simplifies integration with existing IT infrastructure and legacy PBX systems.

But perhaps the most exciting new offering with the ShoreTel 11 release is support for the iPhone. The ShoreTel Communicator platform is now supported on the iPhone, allowing access to the user interface of communicator.Other SmartPhones that are platforms for ShoreTel Communicator include: BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Curve and Samsung Blackjack II.The ShoreTel Communicator for iPhone app, available in the iPhone App Store, has many features including:

• View, listen and call back from ShoreTel voicemail box
• Access to and call back from call history
• Presence and preferred call handling settings
• Allows you to assign your ShoreTel extension to your iPhone
• Dialing to iPhone contacts
• Allows you to hide your iPhone number when calling out

With mobile apps, ShoreTel is becoming even more “brilliantly simple.”Want to know more about how ShoreTel 11 works on the iPhone? Download the iOS App. 

 

A recent article from CRN listed the movers and shakers of 2010 and ShoreTel was one of companies recognized.

Review the points noted below and click on this link if you would like to see the other notables from 2010: CRN website

ShoreTel And Agito, October 2010

It was a big year for scrappy UC player ShoreTel, which, among several major events, gained a new CEO, and made a game-changing acquisition of Agito Networks, dramatically upping its stake in the mobility space.

Agito, founded in 2006, focuses on UC products that can integrate with an enterprise's existing PBX infrastructure to enable voice calls over VoIP connections, reduce calling costs and make international mobile communications less cumbersome. What's especially interesting -- and potentially huge for ShoreTel channel partners looking for flexible mobile UC solutions -- is that ShoreTel is going to keep the Agito technology vendor-agnostic, including PBX and UC support for both ShoreTel systems and those of its many competitors.

Recently ShoreTel announced that it has achieved VMware Ready™ status. This designation indicates that the latest ShoreTel software release has passed a detailed evaluation and testing process managed by VMware and is now listed on the VMware Partner Product Catalog.

Passing the extensive VMware-specified testing helps ensure that ShoreTel makes best use of VMware technology and is ready for deployment in customer environments.

“We are pleased that ShoreTel qualifies for the VMware Ready™ logo, signifying to customers that it has passed specific VMware testing and interoperability criteria and is ready to run in production environments,” said Bernie Mills, senior director, alliance programs, VMware.

“By deploying ShoreTel in a virtualized environment with VMWare® VSphere 4.0, enterprises can further lower their total cost of ownership by reducing server requirements, and saving energy and space. ShoreTel’s commitment to cutting the cost of complexity with brilliantly simple solutions aligns perfectly with the virtualization benefits offered by VMware,” said Kevin Gavin, vice president of marketing, ShoreTel.

The VMware Ready program is a VMware co-branding program for qualified partner products and is a benefit of the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program. With more than 1,300 members worldwide, the VMware TAP program works with best-of-breed technology partners to provide them a comprehensive set of VMware technical and marketing services, support, tools and expertise to deliver enhanced value to joint customers.
 
ShoreTel can be found within the online VMware Partner Product Catalog at http://wwwa.vmware.com/partnercatalog/catalog/. Hardware products can be found within the online VMware Hardware Compatibility List at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.

While much has been written about Miller’s Magical Number Seven, ShoreTel’s seventh year in a row as Best Overall Telephony Provider in the Nemertes PilotHouse Award annual benchmark is only just making news.

But it’s big news.

For seven consecutive years, ShoreTel has gone up against industry giants, such as Cisco, Avaya and Mitel, and won.

And we’ve won because our customers say so, not because of our size, or our “influence,” or our spread across the industry. Nemertes is an independent research firm that surveys IT professionals and determines the results exclusively on their views and experience.

This year, our customers put us ahead by a massive majority. ShoreTel’s overall score was 4.22, while Cisco trailed behind with the next highest score of 3.90.

And in each of the areas rated—technology, customer service and value—we beat out the competitors and gained in standing.

For a helpful overview of the IP telephony market today and the ratings of all major vendors, download this year’s Nemertes report.

In an attempt to battle unnecessary and costly complexity, ShoreTel has begun an anti-complexity movement for the IP Telephony industry.

ShoreTel has denounced the way vendors commonly piece together solutions from several different proprietary technologies, creating higher long-run costs. Although it protects the vendors’ positions and creates a continuous revenue stream, it's a practice far more complex and costly to consumers.

Instead, ShoreTel has worked towards removing complexity from its system, engineering a solution for optimized IP-based communication and collaboration. It includes simple management and end-user features integrating voice, video, data, and mobile communication, and by reducing complexity, costs go down, as well as total cost of ownership

"ShoreTel’s 'Brilliantly Simple' campaign is resonating with both customers and channel partners," says UCStrategies co-founder and UC Expert Blair Pleasant. "The ShoreTel channel partners I’ve spoken with are very favorable toward the ShoreTel solution and lack of complexity, noting that the product is easy to purchase, implement, and use, but is full featured and well designed."

ShoreTel's campaign has developed some videos that attack Cisco brand, even camouflaging their logo, www.shoretel.com/simplify.html,  bold.

There is more to come.

ShoreTel customers rate its technology, customer service, and value highest in the industry

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 15, 2010 –ShoreTel® (NASDAQ: SHOR), the leading provider of brilliantly simple IP phone systems with fully integrated unified communications (UC), today announced that for the seventh consecutive year, it has received the highest ratings for IP telephony products from IT decision makers in Nemertes Research annual benchmark. The high ratings earned ShoreTel the Nemertes PilotHouse Award for Best IP Telephony Provider–Market Challengers. Nemertes, an independent research firm based in Illinois, received ratings for 37 IP telephony vendors and determined the award solely on the views and experiences of more than 2,000 actual users of IP telephony systems.

ShoreTel continues to win by a significant margin in all areas evaluated, beating all providers, including Cisco, Avaya, and Mitel, in all categories. “ShoreTel has maintained its first-place standing, with more authority than ever,” the report states. “This year, ShoreTel is the winner with an impressive 4.22 overall score.” The next highest overall score from a competing vendor was 3.90.

 

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

• Customers rated their providers on a scale of 1 to 5 in the following categories: Technology, Customer Service, and Value. ShoreTel was the only vendor to score above a 4 rating in all categories. Nemertes analysts also conducted in-depth conversations with a subset of IP telephony decision-makers to understand the reasons behind the results.
• Technology: This year, ShoreTel received its highest rating yet for technology, 4.33, surpassing last year’s 4.08. “From a technology perspective, participants rating ShoreTel also say the system is easy to understand and not overly complex like some of its competitors,” the report states.
• Customer Service: ShoreTel received a 4.10 rating for customer service, another jump over the previous year. One research participant, a CIO of a $100 million K-12 school districts is quoted in the report as saying of ShoreTel, “They are sterling relative to their peers.” ShoreTel was the only vendor to score above 4 in this category.
• Value: The value rating measures what customers think about what they get for their money. With the top value rating of 4.24, ShoreTel far surpassed the competition, beating out vendors such as Cisco, Avaya, Mitel and Microsoft.

 

QUOTES

“We are honored to earn this highly prestigious award for the seventh year running. Clearly, ShoreTel customers value our commitment to product and service excellence. ShoreTel’s all-in-one UC system was designed to eliminate complexity by offering a brilliantly simple solution to help our customers align business communications with business goals, improving efficiency, reducing costs and increasing productivity.  Our partners and employees understand how important it is to our customers that the decision to bring ShoreTel into the business is the right decision. Our consistently high marks in the Nemertes PilotHouse Awards indicate that we continue to deliver on these promises”

-          John W. Combs, CEO  ShoreTel

 

“ShoreTel is the only vendor in any technology category to have received the highest scores since Nemertes started tracking IT decision-maker ratings seven years ago. ShoreTel's customers continually rate its customer service, technology and value ahead of all of its competitors."

-          Robin Gareiss, Nemertes’ executive vice president and senior founding partner

 

Sinclair Community College is the largest regional provider of online education, with more than 180 different online courses and a mission that focuses on providing accessible, high quality, affordable learning opportunities. As a commuter college that depends on the telephone to ensure smooth communication with students, Sinclair College needed to replace a legacy phone system from a manufacturer that had dropped out of the picture. ShoreTel was Sinclair’s choice for the future.

Sinclair Community College encompasses five remote campuses covering a forty-mile radius from its Dayton Oh campus, and servers more than 27,000 commuter students. The largest regional provider of online education, its' mission is to provide accessible, high quality, affordable learning opportunities. Of the nearly 37,000 calls it handles during peak registration periods, most concern financial aid and require the expertise of agents with very specific training. As the economy drives more people to move towards new careers and qualifications, Sinclair expects peak call rates to top 46,000 in 2010.

In 2002, Sinclair's legacy Fujitsu PBX manufacturer went out of business. Although the PBX system met current needs, college staff recognized that the system ultimately needed replacement. With a knowledgeable IT staff active in organizations such as the Association for Information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education (ACUTA) which has a well established VoIP special interest group, Sinclair was well prepared to evaluate VoIP and IP-PBX solutions against the specific needs of higher education settings. After talking to Accent Information Systems, a ShoreTel partner, two IP-based communication systems made it to Sinclair's short list, Avaya and ShoreTel.

Find out more about the solution by clicking this link: http://www.shoretel.com/resource_center/success_stories/Sinclair_Community_College.html

 

Report Focuses Heavily on Customer Experience and Product Offering

ShoreTel® the leading provider of brilliantly simple IP phone systems with fully integrated unified communications (UC), announced it has received a "Strong Positive" rating in Gartner's April 2010 "MarketScope for Unified Communications for the SMB Market, North America." The report's weighted rating system focuses most heavily on the customer experience and the capabilities, quality, and feature set of the product.

Kevin Gavin, Vice President of Marketing, ShoreTel, said "We believe this report and our ‘Strong Positive' rating confirms our position in the market and our commitment to providing our customers with the industry's best features, reliability, and service. From small companies to large enterprises, it's clear that when customers share their experiences, ShoreTel's true leadership shines."