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.

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

ShoreTel Reaches One Million Phone Milestone With Shipment to Non-Profit Community Health Center Company Ships One Millionth Phone to Clinica Romero, which works on behalf of the underserved population of Greater Los Angeles

The leading provider of brilliantly simple IP phone systems with fully integrated Unified Communications (UC), is pleased to announce that is has shipped its one millionth phone to Clinica Romero in Los Angeles as part of an initial deployment that includes more than 180 phones in three locations.

"We're thrilled to be the recipient of the one millionth phone since ShoreTel is one in a million when it comes to phone systems," said Robert Desmond, CFO at Clinica Romero. "The ShoreTel solution provides a solid platform for future growth and enables us to deploy a single phone system across all of our three sites, and manage them from a single point without requiring additional IT resources. Plus, the easy to learn features create a highly efficient call center to better serve our community."

As a private, nonprofit, federally qualified community health center, Clinica Romero operates in East Los Angeles neighborhoods, serving disadvantaged patients, including the homeless, from more than 140 Southern California zip codes. ShoreTel features such as workgroups, hunt groups and office anywhere, help Clinica Romero ensure that no call goes unanswered, and that patients are routed to the most qualified staff member as quickly as possible.

Despite the economic downturn, ShoreTel has maintained a steady growth over the past few years, in part due to its management simplicity and obsessive focus on customer satisfaction. In April 2009, independent analyst firm, Synergy Research, announced that ShoreTel had achieved the No.1 market-share position worldwide in the small and midsize market for its desktop application, ShoreTel Call Manager. In November, Nemertes Research awarded ShoreTel Best Overall VoIP Provider for the sixth year in a row, based on independent surveys of IT professionals.

It has been said before that the "first million is the hardest". We are glad to have ShoreTel as a Premier partner. Let's get the 2nd million!

As we begin to total up the donations for Pelotonia we are very grateful for the support you have shown us and The James Cancer Research Center.

We couldn't have been successful without you. Thank you. If you know of others that would like to joing the 1,000's that have raised millions please direct them to the website.

The ride has finished this year but the Fight against Cancer continues. Thank you!

Take a look at some of the pictures from the event here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42074670@N06/sets

New ShoreGear Family of V Switches helps ensure access to business-critical voicemail applications in the event of WAN failure

SUNNYVALE, CA, January 22, 2009 - ShoreTel, Inc., (NASDAQ: SHOR), a leading provider of Pure IP Unified Communications (UC) solutions, has unveiled a new family of ShoreGear® Voice Switches that extends the company's unique single-image distributed architecture to voicemail and auto-attendant applications. By integrating support for these capabilities into its switches, ShoreTel expands its leadership in the UC industry by reducing the cost and complexity of deploying a highly reliable and robust voicemail and auto-attendant system across multiple locations. With the ShoreGear 50V, ShoreGear 90V and ShoreGear 90BRIV switches, organizations can ensure local access to voicemail even in the event of WAN downtime.

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

• ShoreTel continues to extend the capabilities of its distributed and robust communications platform, making UC easier, more reliable, and more cost-effective to deploy.
• More Flexibility: The ShoreGear family of V switches gives our companies greater flexibility to deploy reliable voicemail services at their branch offices by simply equipping the office with the new switch.
• Improved Reliability: The ShoreGear family of V switches stores voicemail messages on highly reliable Compact Flash Card technology, offering superior reliability over traditional disk drives.
• Small Footprint: To conserve space in the data center, the ShoreGear V switches are packaged in 1U half-width chassis and occupy no more rack space than the ShoreGear 50, 90 and 90BRI models.

FEATURES

For a detailed description and list of features for all ShoreGear switches click here.

• The ShoreGear 50V switch supports up to 50 IP telephones, two analog extensions and four loop-start trunks. It also supports 50 voicemail boxes with 22 hours of voicemail storage.
• The ShoreGear 90V switch supports up to 90 IP telephones, four analog extensions and eight loop-start trunks. It also supports 90 voicemail boxes with 56 hours of voicemail storage.
• The ShoreGear 90BRIV switch supports up to 90 IP phones, four analog extensions, and four BRI ports (eight channels). It also supports 90 voicemail boxes with 56 hours of voicemail storage.

QUOTES

"Voicemail is an essential component of business-critical communications and, as such, it is one of the key pillars of a unified communications platform. For today's workers, voicemail is a crucial business tool that must be accessible anytime, and from anywhere. By integrating voicemail into a distributed architecture through the new ShoreGear V switches, ShoreTel has made it possible for companies to cost-effectively increase the reliability and accessibility of their voicemail, leading to greater productivity and improved customer service."

- Kevin Gavin, vice president of marketing, ShoreTel

For detailed information on ShoreTel products and features, click here.