ShoreTel Demos

[Neiby]

We had an in-house demo of a Shoretel system yesterday. It was really interesting to see how easy it is to use. We were all impressed. I'm still worried about the lack of features overall, but it has most of the features we want and it seems to do them really well.

I'm about to attend ShoreTel's weekly online interactive demo to get a little more information.

[mattwray]

I'm still worried about the lack of features overall

Which all features are you talking about?

[Neiby]

I just mean that ShoreTel doesn't stack up well against the other big players when it comes to total available features. ShoreTel is betting that they offer the features most important to the majority of companies. They're probably right, but one of the reasons the big PBXs are popular is that they are highly configurable and can be made to work in a wide variety of situations and environments.

So far, it appears that ShoreTel does everything we'd need it to do, but I worry that we might run into something in the future that it can't do, which would be especially irritating if it was something that is commonly supported on other PBXs.

Here's an example: ground start CO trunks. Why in the world does ShoreTel not support ground start trunks? That just makes no sense to me. And if they don't support something as common as ground start trunks, what other common features might be missing?

My manager surmised that perhaps Shoreline gear began as a key system, and perhaps that's why they don't support ground start. If ShoreTel is going to position their product as an IP PBX, though, then the system needs to have more features that people expect to see in a PBX.

Don't get me wrong. I'm really impressed with the system. It looks like it would be a great fit in our environment and it seems to be unbelievably easy to use. However, I just have a bad gut feeling that is telling me that the system just isn't enterprise-ready.

(Then again, maybe it's my Cisco account rep telling me that! <g>)

[VonZipper]

We have around 500 users, and are in the process of moving from Nortel to all ShoreTel. We have not found any issue over the past 5 years that ShoreTel could not handle. Ground starts are old school, move to PRI's

[mattwray]

I was with a partner back on Shoreline 4 and am an Administrator now and can say I have not yet found something that we could not do. Whether it is canned out of the box or a workaround.

We have around 200 users across 4 sites up and running now with another 3-400 to go across 4 more sites. We use PRIs across the board and this has worked very well for us.

Good luck with your choice, whatever it may be.

[cburgy]

The system is very capable and definitely enterprise grade. We are replacing a new 1300 seat Nortel system at a 2 year college with Shoretel. It does everything they want and they are able to fully administer the system without having a PhD. If you need a video conferencing phone on your desktop, Shoretel may not be the best fit. However, for practically every type of organization we run in to, Shoretel is a superb fit and requires a substantially smaller investment then the likes of Cisco, Nortel or Avaya.

Moreover, you are going to see some huge development ramp up from Shoretel over the next 1-2 years. They are hiring a tremendous number of engineers to continually push product development forward.

[Neiby]

I've been very impressed with what I've seen so far. I really hate the ShoreTel phones, but the Call Manager application more than makes up for them. That app is awesome!

[pachecod]

Complete Featureset

We have several scenarios within our system (call centers, supervisor/secretary, receptionists, hotlines, self-navigated menus, etc.) and we are able to accommodate all of them with ShoreTel. We have 2700 users in 35 locations that the system handles nicely--and we could add more without a problem.

We just upgraded from 5.2 to the latest GA build of 6.1 to get even more features. I can see ShoreTel becoming more like the others with redundancy, SIP, and other standards in the next few future releases.

The only thing I wish they could focus on more is reporting and monitoring. There is very little I can show my director and superintendents out of the box.

[cburgy]

We have several scenarios within our system (call centers, supervisor/secretary, receptionists, hotlines, self-navigated menus, etc.) and we are able to accommodate all of them with ShoreTel. We have 2700 users in 35 locations that the system handles nicely--and we could add more without a problem.

We just upgraded from 5.2 to the latest GA build of 6.1 to get even more features. I can see ShoreTel becoming more like the others with redundancy, SIP, and other standards in the next few future releases.

The only thing I wish they could focus on more is reporting and monitoring. There is very little I can show my director and superintendents out of the box.

Shoretel should be addressing the reporting soon (web-based). For monitoring, they just released the Shoreware System Monitor. You can view more at: http://www.shoretel.com/products/pho...ystem_monitor/

[cburgy]

I've been very impressed with what I've seen so far. I really hate the ShoreTel phones, but the Call Manager application more than makes up for them. That app is awesome!

What don't you like about the phones?

[Neiby]

I hate the displays. I hate all IP phones with low-res displays. And the ShoreTel stuff is low-res and cramped, a bad combination. The only IP phones I've ever used that I like are the newer Cisco 7941/61 and 7970. The Avaya IP phone I'm using now is pretty good. The display is a decent resolution and it has some color to it, which is nice, but it's still not as good a phone as the Cisco 7961 that I had at my old job.

[cburgy]

I hate the displays. I hate all IP phones with low-res displays. And the ShoreTel stuff is low-res and cramped, a bad combination. The only IP phones I've ever used that I like are the newer Cisco 7941/61 and 7970. The Avaya IP phone I'm using now is pretty good. The display is a decent resolution and it has some color to it, which is nice, but it's still not as good a phone as the Cisco 7961 that I had at my old job.

Interesting... I admint the color display phones are nice but this is the first time i've heard someone who doesn't care for the Shoretel phones. It'll be nice when they eventually release a color screen phone.

[Neiby]

To be fair, it's not just the ShoreTel phones I don't like. I dislike all low-res display phones. I just hate looking at them. I also hate small displays like those on the Shoretel phones. I like a big, clear display like on the Cisco 7941/61/70 or even the Mitel 5235/5330/5340 phones. I also like my phones to cosmetically appear really solid, which is the case for Avaya, Cisco, and Mitel, as examples. the ShoreTel phones look a little cheap. I doubt they are cheap, but they have that appearance.

This is just one man's opinion, though, so take it with a grain of salt.

[pachecod]

Yes, my school district was a beta test site for the ShoreTel System Monitor product. It is cool that it can visually show what is going on, but because they teamed up with a second-rate network monitoring company, it leaves a lot to be desired in the monitoring and reporting side of things. It's supposed to be a monitoring software not so much a reporting software.

[Justin Phillips]

I have been in the phone business for some time, and currently manage one that is a huge Avaya Definity and ShoreTel dealer. I have worked on through the years Avaya, Cisco, ShoreTel, and 3Com and besides the Definity line wich is going to cost you an arm and a leg, I have yet to find a better product. I have yet to find anything that ShoreTel can't do and if you left the demo thinking the architecture was rigid and could not adapt and change as the business changed you did not have a good demo. ShoreTel has the most flexible architecture out of all of them that makes them better suited to adapt to whatever you can dream up, and the great part about ShoreTel is, it will most likely not cost you any money to have the system adapt as your business changes.