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We are/were within days of signing a Shoretel contract but with a 54% drop in their stock and a investigation underway, should I continue. What is Shoretel's future?
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I'll be the first to respond.
I love Shoretel. How a company can drop so fast in stock, when they were downgraded from Buy to Neutral, or how getting .05 per share versuses .08 per share could cause this. They were 8% off of there numbers. Companies report HUGE losses and there stocks drop 10%, yet Shoretel plummeted.
From a personal perspective, Q4 was slow for US as a company, not just Shoretel, but our Q1 (Jan-March) is looking to be our best ever with Shoretel as a product line.
I have faith, as I know how this system works, and I know what the customers think about it. The 'investigations' are just that. Some LA lawyers saw the stock drop, knew that people lost money, and want to take advantage. They are modern day ambulance-chasers.
With that said. We just purchased 2500 shares.
Charles -
Sounds like ShoreTel will miss their forecasted 2nd Qtr revenue by 7% to 12% depending on how you look at it, and as a result, investors (in my opinion, most of whom probably don't know much about the company's products) panicked.
My personal opinion...don't just buy the ShoreTel System; buy the ShoreTel System and buy ShoreTel stock while it's down!
As for the investigation...(again my personal opinion)...this is a law firm that specializes in Stock Market Fraud and is calling out to investors and others to "find out" if there may have been any wrongdoing in this case. I searched Google for ["KGS Announces Investigation" -Shoretel] (in case you don't know, the -Shoretel part excludes any hits that include the word ShoreTel. That search returned 1,910 results, so it appears to me that this law firm does this type of thing quite often.
Excerpt from ShoreTel News Release...
"NEW YORK, Jan. 7, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- ShoreTel Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOR) Monday said it expects second-quarter revenue to be between $29.7 million and $30.7 million, which is lower than the mean estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial for second-quarter sales of $34 million.
Revenue expectations are also below previously-given guidance in the range of $32 million to $35 million, which the company attributes to a decrease in new customers."...
Link to Investigation announcement.
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http://shoretel.eastwick.com/shoretel-ceo-message
Dear ShoreTel Customers and Shareholders,
I felt it was important to address the market’s reaction to our guidance announcement yesterday.
We believe this week’s news regarding the revenue miss for the quarter ending December 2007 should by no means overshadow our significant achievements in 2007 and our many opportunities for 2008. Our preliminary CY 2007 revenue was a new ShoreTel record and approximately 50 percent higher than our CY 2006 results, a growth rate well ahead of the overall industry’s 20-30 percent pace. In addition, our preliminary December 2007 quarter revenue was approximately 35 percent higher than the December 2006 quarter. We continue to have a solid balance sheet, backed by approximately $100 million cash in the bank.
Our recent awards from Deloitte, Inc. Magazine and the San Jose Business Journal recognizing our revenue growth are a testament to our focus on growing our business. ShoreTel is the world’s fastest growing provider of distributed unified communications solutions and continues to deliver the industry’s highest level of customer satisfaction. For the fourth year in a row, Nemertes’ customer satisfaction survey ranked ShoreTel number one in every category.
ShoreTel also won the Customersat.com award and the Best-in-Class for Customer Service from ContactCenterWorld.com.
ShoreTel’s products also continue to gain recognition and win industry awards; Best in VoiceCon ‘07 was the latest in a series. Thanks to our continued focus on delivering best-in-class product, 2007 was no exception; new product introductions included a family of high-density/small footprint switches, color phones, Mobile Call Manager, expanded international native trunking support, and numerous professional services integrations.
Looking to the year ahead, we believe our opportunity is bright. We have an exciting pipeline of new products that will be introduced throughout the year.
Stay tuned for more updates from ShoreTel.
All the best,
John W. Combs
President & CEO
ShoreTel, Inc.Last edited by Forum; 01-09-2008, 07:44 AM.Comment
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Hated to see my stock tank! I am not alarmed. I just don't see the panic.
We hired a ShoreTel Engineer yesterday.
I suspect that this will be the best year in 2008.
I have received 2 calls this AM about the stock drop and where is ST going.
If going anywhere, ST has positioned themselves well to At&T and Nortel (thru Black Box.) I'd hate to see either happen.
Lastly, we have our foot in the door still with legacy products. We will survive!Comment
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Haha!!! You finally got the Shoretel Engineer you've been after! Awesome! See, it wasn't that hard
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Personally, I think the stock is a fantastic buy right now. I just purchased more shares. They missed their growth targets.... they were overly aggressive and they got punished (I think way too much, but hey, I am not the expert I guess). Lesson learned.
Regardless, look at their financial metrics compared to the industry average. Enough said....
Shoretel will not be going anywhere... they have a solid balance sheet and their product is outstanding.Last edited by cburgy; 01-09-2008, 09:59 AM.Comment
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John,
With 27 years in telephony, I highly recommend ShoreTel. We sell another product besides ShoreTel (because we have a large existing base of customers using it) and have sold many others in the past. All of those manufacturers are calling us now and saying "I told you so" after the recent drop in stock price and suit filings. But I tell them all the same thing..."I would be kicking them while they are down too if I only had your product to sell."
Our belief is ShoreTel has the best product in the industry. The facts are not changed due to stock adjustments, law suits, etc., so long as ShoreTel continues to maintain their balance sheet as they have the past two years. And we believe they will.
No other manufacturer delivers what customers need the most...
1. A simple, easy to install, easy to manage and easiest to use IP Telephony system
2. Reliability designed throughout the platform...not just at the core. Everyone else designs redundancy/high-reliability/fault tolerance into the core system, but they often fail by not realizing the importance to extend this critical design element to all sites and all users. ShoreTel does this better than anyone.
3. Reduced cost of ownership (as compared to the others) because of item #1.
4. Scalable design which allows a customer to grow from 10 phones to 10,000 and never wasting $1 on hardware/software which can not be used later when your company grows. No one else can do this!
There are other reasons which deserve mentioning but there is no need for "war & peace" to explain why ShoreTel is the elite in today's telephony competition. Just realize why the competition is saying these things...they know they cant beat ShoreTel any other way! If they could, you wouldnt be in this forum asking for validation. You would have already signed with someone else. Trust your evaluation...ShoreTel is the one!
Finally, my last point would be there is no reason to risk your decision anyway. Simply have your ShoreTel dealer protect your investment with an obsolescence protected lease rather than a purchase. Comm3 offers every prospect and customer our TAMCO Shield Lease so as to protect them in this manner. In the event ShoreTel or our other manufacturers dissapear, the customer is always protected. Since TAMCO owns the equipment rather than the customer, you simply pay to use it rather than own it. We all know how much technology can depreciate heavily by the month, with the TAMCO Shield you only pay that months usage. And if the technology ever becomes dated, abandoned, or no longer fits your needs, you simply ask them to replace it with something else that does...even if it is another manufacturer! And the best news is you will never pay a penalty or owe a dime on the balance at the time of change. This is why they call it the Shield!
Best regards on your decision and come back and let us know what you concluded.
Troy Cryer
CEO
Comm3
http://www.comm3.netComment
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Oh crap, I wish I's seen this sooner!
I'm wish I'd seen your post about Shoretel being on the scrap heap with their stock having little or no value sooner. I'm down in Texas tonight having just completed the second site of a three site installation. This has been less than enjoyable. I got stuck with a certified Shoretel engineer out of Vegas that was nothing but a pain in my a__. He was supposed to train our admin personal but that didn't happen. When questioned about obvious admin tasks that were clearly visible on his screen, he would give evasive answers with the intent to preserve his position of knowledge power over the installation. Given his lack of professionalism I hope this serves as a warning to anyone needing an engineer to avoid one named Jordan that’s working out of Vegas.Comment
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Sorry you had that experience. I love training companies on how to do it themselves. I started this site to help them ,and other self administered systems. Don't let one bad person ruin your experience. It's not worth it.
I have a 7 site install coming up in a few months, that I'm gonna sit back and tell the IT person what to do, and guide him. He wants to learn it, so I said fine. Nothing works better than hands on training.
But that is me. I don't count on recurring visits with my shoretel customers. I assist them only when they need it, and most of the times, I walk them through it over the phone.
CharlesComment
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Bad expierence
Please don't judge Shoretel on One bad installer/administrator. I am in Texas and install system all the time. While I perform the install I make sure the customer administrator is very involved so that when it is complete they have a good working understanding of the system. If they understand the system the easier it is for me to assist them remotely over the phone at a latter time rather than the customer incurring expensive charges for me to visit their site for something they could have easily done if trained.
I am sorry that you had a bad expierence with a poor installer but please don't let it reflect on Shoretel itself.Comment
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Engineer gone bad!
Sorry for the hissy fit I was really upset last night. Is there a way I can find out if this installer is ShoreTel certified? Does ShoreTel even certify, like Microsoft & Cisco? I have a one year warranty on this system but when thats up, I'll be shopping for a new support vendor. I'm glad to here there are still good people out there. Thanks AgainComment
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Shoretel has 2 certification levels:
Shoretel Certified Installer
Shoretel Certified Systems Engineer
To take the Systems Engineer class, you have to have 6 months experience installing Shoretel systems.
I don't know if there is a way to find out if somebody actually took it. I do know that both classes are open to customers.
Also, you may want to consider Enterprise support, rather than vendor support when renewal time comes around. Enterprise is Shoretel, 24x7, call center based. They can resolve 99% of the issues remotely, I'm sure.
CharlesComment
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Verified certification?
Thanks Charles & Pokertrio for you responses. I have gone back to the vendor that brought in this engineer and asked for verification of his credentials. I also asked how he intended to provide the training that his engineer refused to provide. His response was "well just what do you want to be trained on". I responded with the ShoreTel System Engineer course syllabus. If you hadn't pointed out the different training tracts I wouldn't have known they existed. Lets see where this goes.
Thanks AgainComment
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Shoretel provides free self-paced training on a number of topics in their Learning Management System (LMS). You can register for free at http://www.shoretel.com/trainingOriginally posted by Victor
To be honest, I doubt that he will be providing System Engineer training. They likely aren't equipped for that, you should go to the class to obtain that training for Shoretel directly. Depending on the environment, we usually see the customer either going to a Shoretel class or taking the web-based System Administration training. Our team will always do a "crash-course" on how to use and administer the system. There isn't a substitute for a full weeks class though, you just have to do it.
That being said, Shoretel is very easy to administer. When we first became a partner, we had our system up and running within a couple hours.Comment
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