What he competition is saying.

[VJ]

Yesterday Catalyst (big middleman for AVAYA) hosted a webinar on how to compete against NorTel, ShoreTel and Cisco. No one hardly asked a question about NorTel. When they got to ShoreTel they really tried to bash the product because:
Only a $95 million company vs AVAYA's $5.8 billion.
ShoreTel dealers have no confidence and sell two product lines.
Only have 280 employees world wide vs 4,000 plus for AVAYA.
The contact center is in jeopardy with the guys in Israel.

I'd add to that that any good telephone dealer, AVAYA included, better be selling more than one brand to stay competitive. We carry three, AVAYA being one.

To the part of number of employees - valid point. The going public was supposed to solve that issue. Need more faces and timely distribution of new things and issues. The Yahoo group is it for right now other than this forum.

All in all they could say very little bad about ShoreTel and the chat line was clogged up with questions, so many in fact they never got to the Cisco part of the presentation. Odd thing is I learned more about the new switches and 7.0 and 7.5 from AVAYA than I have from ShoreTel.

If any one is interested in the replay that is available let me know and I will post the link to get there.

They also very pointedly said they are having ongoing concerns about ESI as a valid competitor and are going to do a session on them before too long.

[svalles]

Please send me the link thanks

[Forum]

Avaya used to say: "Beware of Shoretel, they are a private company...but we are a Public company"

Amazing how times have changed, isn't it.

I myself am very verse on the ShoreTel 7.0/7.5 (and even 8.0) offerings. The information is there to be had if you need it. It helps that I am a Beta tester as well.

We only sell Shoretel, but of course phones is second to our IT offerings (at least for now).

It seems as most of there points don't address the product itself, just the company.

Vance, did you make it to the Partner Conference?

[VJ]

Thank you Charles

Thanks for your wisdom. I bet I could spend a day with you and know more than I thought possible.

You are right in that there was no avenue to attack the product. They used to use the argument that you have to have IP phones. They found that hollow in that the phones are less costly than the teletubbies they offer.

I haven't used the 212 sets for the intended purpose for a squared key system. We do AVAYA as well and the reality is they have promised a squared key system ability for years and still have not delivered it -- not even close.

No I did not make the Partner Conference, wanted to. There was a requirement that I be available to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary that week. She who must be obeyed prevailed.

I really do have a hard time ferreting out information as well as does my two techs.

[cburgy]

Thanks for your wisdom. I bet I could spend a day with you and know more than I thought possible.

You are right in that there was no avenue to attack the product. They used to use the argument that you have to have IP phones. They found that hollow in that the phones are less costly than the teletubbies they offer.

I haven't used the 212 sets for the intended purpose for a squared key system. We do AVAYA as well and the reality is they have promised a squared key system ability for years and still have not delivered it -- not even close.

No I did not make the Partner Conference, wanted to. There was a requirement that I be available to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary that week. She who must be obeyed prevailed.

I really do have a hard time ferreting out information as well as does my two techs.

This forum has some wonderful resources to tap into that know a tremendous amount about Shoretel as a company and Shoretel as a product. I would encourage you to post any questions you have and you will find pretty candid answers.

Shoretel will continue to evolve as a company and we'll see a number of changes (we may not agree with as dealers) occur given that they are driven by pleasing their shareholders and held accountable to growth goals.

All in all, Shoretel really has some momentum going right now. As long as we all actively participate in keeping in the boat going in the right direction, it will prove to be lucrative. You are going to see some really cool functionality come to the system in Shoreware 8 and 8.5.

By the way, we only exclusively sell Shoretel and we have tremendous success doing it. Naturally, our business is diversified to reduce risk (we came from the data / pc side). What will be most interesting is the introduction of large national level resellers (CDW, AT&T, etc.). We just lost a deal to AT&T for Shoretel because they were in the account right before we got there and bundled Shoretel in with a whole new WAN infastructure. Crappy.

Hope this sheds some light.

[Forum]

While I agreee that "the big boys" like AT&T are a threat right now....how will the customers feel going to AT&T when they decide to purchase, with the intentions of integrating directly with OCS/LCS and Exchange 2007? I don't know if customers will feel the same then. True Unified Messaging will require a Bit more knowledge for the more advanced installations.

Charles