ShoreTel Connect CLOUD Launches in the UK

London – Feb. 1, 2017 – ShoreTel® (NASDAQ: SHOR), a leading provider of communication solutions that make interactions simple, today announced, as part of its global service expansion, the introduction in the UK of ShoreTel Connect™ CLOUD and ShoreTel Connect Contact Center for CLOUD solutions. ShoreTel can now provide unified communications (UC) ready-made “as-a-service“ with clear and simple customer pricing, enabling a wider range of businesses of all sizes to benefit from voice, video, mobile, conferencing, messaging and contact centre communication services.

These new UC cloud services are sold through ShoreTel cloud partners who can also offer their customers a range of professional services for more complex environments. This launch follows the successful introduction of cloud-based solutions as a partner managed service in the UK in 2015.

“This geographical expansion better positions us to serve the needs of global customers of all types and sizes, while helping to drive cloud growth in EMEA,” said Don Joos, president and CEO of ShoreTel. “Our channel is ready and excited to offer Connect CLOUD to their customers.”

ShoreTel’s Proven Track Record in Cloud UC
ShoreTel Connect CLOUD has been available to US customers for 15 months and the time is right to expand into more theatres. The UK Data Centre is production ready and built on best practices in terms of architecture and knowledge gained over this period. This, combined with a long history of cloud UC service delivery, strategic acquisitions and a proven global 20-year track-record in providing UC software and services, means that ShoreTel’ s ‘enterprise-class’ UC services are now easily accessible to any size of business. This includes ShoreTel Connect Contact Center for CLOUD which is ideal for organisations who need anything from a small help desk to a large scale omni-channel environment.

Adrian Hipkiss, EMEA VP and managing director of ShoreTel commented: “Our aim is to make cloud-based unified communications brilliantly simple for customers with a no risk pathway to cloud based purely on their requirements and needs. This may include some elements that are not yet suited to a cloud-only approach. ShoreTel remains committed to providing choice and flexibility, so ShoreTel Connect CLOUD and ShoreTel Connect Contact Center for CLOUD are welcome additions to support a wider range of customer communication requirements.“

The Customer Experience
A number of customers have already chosen ShoreTel Connect CLOUD based on an intuitive user experience and the industry’s lowest cost of operations for a cloud service. This includes Jerry Belicki from Peter Colby Commercials, a property management company, who said: “Over the last 12 months we have extensively evaluated various telecommunication solutions for our business. We chose ShoreTel Connect CLOUD because it is simple to use and administer. It meets all our needs today and our expected future requirements in a cost-effective way. The Connect desk-top application will deliver voice, video, desktop sharing, conferencing and instant messaging across our 14 sites in a simple, easy to use interface that we can all actually understand and use!”

Peter Colby Commercials are supported by ShoreTel cloud partner Cranberry Communications. Their sales director Mark Nelson commented: “ShoreTel is making cloud UC simple for partners which means we can spend more time understanding customer unified communications requirements regardless of size or complexity.”

ShoreTel Connect CLOUD is designed to improve business productivity and save time, offering a natural, collaborative user experience and placing enterprise communications on-par with personal communications. The ShoreTel Connect client app makes collaboration simple and consistent across various deployment types. With one click, users can easily escalate a conversation from an IM to a call, to an online meeting, and then to a web desktop share and video. Browser-based, the app allows seamless collaboration among internal teams, while also enabling external users to engage and collaborate in the same experience without the need for plug-ins, multiple application windows, passwords or complex set-up.