ShoreTel Upgrade Will Appeal to Businesses Seeking More Mobile, Customer Support Options

| Nov 12, 2007 | Enterprise Communications | Competitive Intelligence Report

| Analyst: Brian Riggs

Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: Moderate

Event Summary

On November 12th ShoreTel announced the latest release of its ShoreTel IP PBX. New features and functionality include a mobility client for smart phones, new switch and IP phone models, and integration with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Additionally, ShoreTel signed AT&T as a master reseller.

Recommended Competitor Actions

• Avaya, Cisco and others leveraging AT&T as a reseller of PBX systems should contact the company to ensure that sales representatives understand how to position their products in relation to those of ShoreTel.

• Mitel, Nortel, Siemens Enterprise Communications and others in a more advanced state of integrating their communications systems with Microsoft apps should note that they are presently delivering integration with Office Communications Server.

• Ericsson, Cisco, Siemens Enterprise Communications and others should point to their impressive FMC solutions as evidence of their ability to deliver a more sophisticated set of mobility features than ShoreTel can presently provide.

Recommended End User / Customer Actions

• AT&T should dedicate a number of its sales representatives to become fully trained in positioning ShoreTel solutions, mainly to SMBs but also large enterprises as well. ShoreTel’s distributed architecture is rather unique in the PBX market and, positioned correctly to customers with many branch offices, could prove a vehicle for winning new business.

• Current ShoreTel customers should familiarize themselves with the new ShoreGear switches before expanding their voice networks. The new models have the potential of taking up less space, consuming less power and requiring fewer components (due to integrated T1/E1interfaces).

• Current ShoreTel customers considering an Exchange-based unified messaging solution should familiarize themselves with the tradeoffs compared with relying on voice mail systems based on the distributed ShoreTel architecture.

CLIENTS ONLY

Analytical Summary

Current Perspective

Competitive Positives and Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

| Client access - Enterprise Communications | More information

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