Customers Rank ShoreTel # 1 According to New Report by Nemertes Research
Friday, November 19, 2004 at 10:31
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For Second Consecutive Year, Customers Rate ShoreTel’s VoIP System as Easiest to Implement, Manage and Use with Best Customer Service and Lowest Start-up Costs
Sunnyvale, Calif., November 17, 2004 – ShoreTel Inc., the innovation leader in enterprise IP telephony, today announced it has once again swept all categories in a comprehensive study of VoIP adoption conducted by Nemertes Research. A wide range of businesses reported that ShoreTel’s VoIP solution is the easiest to implement, manage, and use, comes with the best support and customer service, and has the lowest total start-up costs.
In explaining the results, Nemertes notes that ShoreTel does not suffer from voice or data tunnel vision, because its technology was designed from the ground up with IP telephony in mind. There is no legacy baggage creating implementation and integration problems, or clouding the management picture.
“The mantra this year is less complexity,” says Robin Gareiss, principal research officer for Nemertes. “Many tools that newcomers to VoIP try to use simply can’t provide the details about network performance—including bandwidth utilization, quality of service, and other voice-critical parameters—that professionals need to adequately manage the converged network. Others include too many data points. The simplicity of ShoreTel’s management tools is what customers like and want.”
Just How Easy Is It?
So just how easy is ShoreTel’s solution to implement and manage? Participants in the exhaustive Nemertes study answer this in their own words.
- We selected ShoreTel because we liked the management, the daily monitoring, the ease of use,” says one telecom manager. “It just struck us as an elegant solution.”
- “ShoreTel has grabbed our attention unexpectedly,” says an IS manager for a manufacturing company. “It’s easy. It’s straight-forward. Our voice people don’t feel they have to become data people.”
- “The ease of management and support is head-and-shoulders above the others,” says the IT director for a financial-services firm. “With ShoreTel, I manage one system, and it’s centralized. I take care of it in one place. With Cisco, I manage 19 locations.”
- “We don’t feel we’re held hostage by tech people who have knowledge of Nortel or Lucent,” says the IT director of a healthcare company. “ShoreTel is something any of our IT guys could administer in a couple of days.”
Start-up Costs Gotchas
Day-to-day operational costs can really add up, and the Nemertes study found that they vary widely from one vendor solution to another. In fact, ongoing operational costs per user vary from $164 to $18. ShoreTel’s ease of installation, management and use were manifested convincingly here, contributing to the lowest start-up costs per user of all vendors evaluated.
“We have always known how happy our customers are once their ShoreTel networks are up and running,” said ShoreTel CEO John W. Combs. “ShoreTel is committed to complete customer satisfaction, which continues to be a key differentiator for us. It’s great to see these efforts validated and quantified by Nemertes Research.”
To obtain a copy of “Convergence: Reality at Last,” contact Nemertes Research at (888) 241-2685. For more information about ShoreTel, visit www.ShoreTel.com or call 1-877-80SHORE. The Nemertes benchmark was not sponsored by any vendors.
About Nemertes Research
Founded in 2002, Nemertes Research specializes in analyzing the business value of emerging technologies for IT executives, vendors, and venture capitalists. Recent and upcoming research includes virtual workplace, security and extranets, convergence, and bandwidth optimization. Web services, IP telephony, collaboration, and bandwidth optimization.
About ShoreTel, Inc.
ShoreTel is the innovation leader in enterprise IP telephony. The company has shipped its groundbreaking intelligent phones systems since 1998 and continues to outpace the rapidly expanding Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) market with technological advances and 100% year-over-year growth. ShoreTel Smart™ technology and a world class channel organization bring the full promise of VoIP to the enterprise, setting new standards for usability and manageability while reducing telecommunications costs. A uniquely distributed architecture extends enterprise-class voice services to every office and outpost, keeping employees fully connected wherever they go. For more information, visit http://www.shoretel.com or call 1-877-80SHORE.
About Trillion
Trillion, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a leading provider of wireless broadband services, high-speed Internet access and IP telephony solutions for education, government, municipalities, libraries, and medical facilities. Trillion specializes in designing, installing, operating, and maintaining wide and local area network systems that utilize state-of-the-art wireless technology. Investors in Trillion include Hexagon Investments, the Intel Communications Fund and Meritage Private Equity Funds. Trillion is an authorized reseller of ShoreTel IP telephony systems. For more information, visit www.trillion.net or call (512) 334-4100.
