Tag Archives | shoretel

ITExpo Miami Best of Show

By on February 9, 2012 in Telecom

Last week was ITExpo in Miami – generally a good conference.

There was lots of news this year. I think the biggest story was Digium’s new phones (see here and here). I don’t think most people realize how impact-full these (well not these, but the next few versions) phones will be. The vast majority of the industry is heading toward standards compliant SIP phones and Digium (which started with standards compliant SIP phones) is moving toward proprietary SIP compliant phones. There is more to this story. The other big story is Shoretel acquiring hosted voice provider M5 – this one really did surprise me. I’m putting my thoughts together and will post shortly.

There was actually a lot of news coming out of Miami last week. I can’t cover it all, but wanted to recognize the best of show winners. This time, TMC awarded 11 Best of Show champions (at the last conference, TMC awarded 20 Best of Show Winners). This year’s winners are:

  • Best Service Provider Solution – Intercity Networks
  • Best Enterprise Solution – Infinias
  • Best SMB Solution – Surf Comunications
  • Best Contact Center Solution – Hold-Free Networks
  • Best of Open Source – Xorcom
  • Best Wireless/Mobile Solution - AudioCodes
  • Best Cloud Solution– APEX VoiceCommunicatons
  • Most Innovative Product – Plantronics
  • Best On-site launch - XKL
  • Best Development Tool – Inventive Labs
  • Editors Choice Award – ABP Technologies (for Totus Solutions)

Congratulations to the winners. I am familiar with most, but not all but will certainly be looking into them.

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Social Blue

By on January 10, 2012 in Telecom

IBM is an impressive company – It has lived through more computational generations than any other. The company doesn’t have the fan base of say an Apple, or the fight evil of Google – but it does have impressive credentials with enterprise computing.  Next week, in Orlando, is LotusSphere. It’s a huge event that takes over the Swan and Dolphin complex.

IBM marches to the beat of its own UC drum. It offers Sametime, a presence solution sans voice. Sametime is positioned as a front-end to the call manager and has developed supported partnerships with multiple premises based voice vendors and Broadsoft.

While the lack of direct voice technology may seem a major omission, there is some logic to it. Basically, IBM figures voice is a commodity and can and should be provided by whatever is cheapest, installed, or architecturally aligned. By using Sametime as the front-end (softphone, phone control, dialing, etc.) an enterprise can achieve a consistent user experience without having to rip and replace lots of equipment. This approach adds some unusual challenges. For one, partnerships change. IBM has featured both Digium and Mitel as partners in the past which don’t seem to be viable current partnerships. Another factor is competitors don’t make the best partners – Avaya, ShoreTel, and Cisco may integrate with Sametime, but all have their own ideas about collaboration and mobility.

IBM Foundations was an attempt to create an SMB appliance ready to go with Sametime and voice from NEC, ShoreTel, or Mitel. The product was discontinued in 2010 before it got much traction. There were numerous problems – SMB didn’t make a lot of sense for the target, and channel conflicts were a problem. Foundations had already displaced IBM’s SmartCube which featured an Asterisk voice solution from Digium. IBM has a very spotty track record when it comes to voice. Continue Reading →

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Cisco and Avaya Leaders Again

By on January 5, 2012 in Telecom

Cisco and Avaya were once again identified as industry leaders. This time, by a new IDC worldwide unified communications Marketscape report. The report claims to use a “rigorous scoring methodology that produces a definititive assessment of each vendro’s current market capabilities and stategies.”

IDC placed Cisco and Avaya in the Leaders category for 2011/2012 with several others, including Microsoft, Alcatel-Lucent (ALU), Siemens, NEC, IBM, and ShoreTel, recognized as Major Players. The report also evaluated Aastra, Digium, Huawei, and Interactive Intelligence – which evidently are not “major players.” That seems like a slippery slope as all of those four have compelling value propositions of their own.

Additional findings from the report include: Continue Reading →

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HP UC

By on December 5, 2011 in Telecom

Is HP a UC player?

And if so, “Player” as in vendor or poser?

The hot part of UC right now is mobility – and HP doesn’t seem to be in that space. Although that could still change. I’ve written before that HP’s best play with WebOS was a business pad – no one can beat Apple right now in the consumer space – but industrial tablets have potential. The next UPS pad, the NursePad that has a port for stethoscope, BP cuff, and temp sensor. The pad-store in the back of airline seats – but Leo didn’t agree with me.

Leo didn’t think HP should be in video conferencing either. He gave HP Halo to Polycom. Technically the deal had a price tag of $89 million, but it was “accretive upon close” according to Andy Miller – CEO Polycom. That means they paid very little for Halo, and most of the $89 million went toward the exclusivity deal with HP and the finger to Vidyo and Cisco. Continue Reading →

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Industry Update

By on November 18, 2011 in Telecom
The iPhone and iPad have broken more records than the iPod did CDs. Microsoft buying Skype was a game changer, but the new game remains a mystery. Here is the current industry round-up. Read it quickly as things are changing fast. Continue Reading →
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ShoreTel Does it Again

By on November 16, 2011 in Telecom

Is it just me or does the word “ShoreTel” keep coming up? There is no question in my mind that ShoreTel is drawing the attention and ire of its competitors.  Continue Reading →

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Seven Reasons Why ShoreTel is Booming

By on August 16, 2011 in Telecom
ShoreTel (Nasdaq: SHOR) recently reported fourth quarter revenues of $56.5 million. That is an increase of 34 percent from a year ago and beat its own guidance. The results enabled ShoreTel to close the year with revenue of $200.1 million, an increase of 35 percent over 2010′s $148.5 million. GAAP net revenue showed a loss for the year of $11.5 million, or 25 cents a share, which is better than last year’s 29 cents per share. 

Bottom line: sales are booming and so are expenses.
The telecom CPE sector as a whole is not experiencing this type of growth, so it begs the question – How is ShoreTel doing it? Here is my list of seven reasons why:
1) The ShoreTel solution is clear- it isn’t for everyone, but ShoreTel knows that. There is no confusion on who they are or what they do. ShoreTel knows the demographics of their customers, they know the features they can deliver, and they “simply” march to a single drum – and march well.
2) ShoreTel benefits from, as ShoreTel puts it, distracted competitors. The vast majority of its competitors are focused on numerous distractions including their shareholder value and UC product portfolio changes. ShoreTel is focused on sales. One could argue that ShoreTel’s product portfolio is woefully behind and I’m sure they cry about this all way to the bank.
3) It is hard to believe, but demos still sell. Think of telecom as a good steak. A good steak can be defined in many ways  - the breed, the cut, the feed, the ranch location, how it is aged, etc. Left brain issues. Meanwhile the right brain succumbs to the ShoreTel sizzle. ShoreTel heavily relies on its presales demo to convey its architecture and user interface. In one sizzling part of the demo, they enter a new user in appliance one and show it propagated to appliance two (see item 2 above).
4) PBX vs. UC: The majority of the enterprise vendors have worked hard to embrace UC and consider the “PBX” label an insult. ShoreTel is happy with the PBX label and so are its customers. UC is clearly the future, and even ShoreTel agrees, but the VoIP PBX business isn’t dead yet. This is where ShoreTel’s strategy around simplicity hits the nail – sometimes you just want to make a call. ShoreTel can do more, but while competitors explain the benefits of UC – ShoreTel demos and quotes a solution that does what the customer initially requested.
5) ShoreTel loves to advertise. It is no secret that advertising sells and most vendors would increase advertising if they could afford it. ShoreTel can’t afford it either, but evidently decided that market share is more critical than near term profitability. This strategy has known risks and is indeed (eventually) self curtailing.
6) The factors above conspired to create an effective channel for ShoreTel, particularly large service providers. The channel will always gravitate toward companies with simple demos, strong advertising fueled demand, and simple products to learn, sell, and support.

7) ShoreTel is small. Admittedly, this argument gets weaker every year. ShoreTel grew Q4-11 34% that’s impressive by any measure. In terms of dollars, it represents a growth of $14.1 million. That is not as impressive considering that much cash can be found in the sofas at some of ShoreTel’s competitors. 


30+% growth is difficult for any company to maintain in any sector. Though it is clearly possible and likely to continue for ShoreTel if things don’t change. It really boils down to how quickly the market shifts and/or how competitors react. ShoreTel’s is not protected by some patent or other barrier of emulation. Competitors either opt not to copy it, or tried and failed. But clearly ShoreTel’s growth is noticed. Several competitors are now pushing simplicity harder in their messaging – Cisco’s new UC 3000 product is clearly aimed at mid market users with a message of simplicity. Other competitors are coming at ShoreTel from a portfolio perspective that attacks ShoreTel. ShoreTel is yet to announce a cloud play, is one of the few major vendors still tied to hardware appliances, and has limited support for SIP and video.

What happens is, of course, speculative. For now, ShoreTel should be quite pleased (smug?) with a job well done.

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Conference Update

By on August 11, 2011 in Telecom

Telecom and UC, VoiP, telephony, or whatever term you choose to describe the convergence, concentration, and diversification of real time communications is indeed in a state of transition, transformation, disruption or whatever term you prefer to use to describe explosion.

There is lots of stuff taking place – partners becoming competitors, technology life cycles condensing, mobility changing everything, social networking consternation, and so on. Plenty of things to blog and write about and I am working on it. More on that later.
But I think there are some clear patterns emerging just from three recent conferences, which I posted at NoJitter.

UC What I See? Provides a view into the recent conferences by NEC, Mitel, and ShoreTel.

What I likey:
NEC: NEC is a big ship that is turning quickly – and I’m not talking about the NEC parent organization with revenues of nearly $40 B, but I am talking about a product portfolio that serves from the very small to very large with everyone in between around the globe.  I’ve been critical of NEC for taking too long to put Sphericall on its front burner, but that is clearly about to change with gusto. NEC has a deep heritage in both telephony and computing – it is evident in Sphericall which will likely complement CIOs strategies broader than UC.
Mitel: Mitel is crystallizing its go to market strategy from just right for anyone to perfect for users with advanced and specific needs around virtualization and mobility. Product focus is on MCD and 5000 though none of the other platforms have been discontinued (yet). I think this focus will help the company and its resellers more clearly communicate Mitel’s value proposition. The big club Mitel has in its bag is the heavy lifting is done, I would expect to see its R&D; commitment to shrink or hold while its marketing and sales efforts increase. This is not the case for many of its competitors. Mitel also has three cloud strategies in play – that’s three more than most of the players coming from CPE voice.
ShoreTel is proving two things: That strong demand remains for VoIP and the complexities associated with UC are likely hurting competitors. ShoreTel has its eye on UC, which is a challenge as its so busy counting sales of VoIP. ShoreTel’s commitment to simplicity makes it easy for channel partners to prospect, sell, implement and support while competitors are still working up the quote.
Things I don’t like:
While the above are specifically attributed to each vendor, what follows is much more broad and based on numerous conversations and observations.

  • The channel is is the big battle ground. UC is too complex for direct sales. UC requires a trusted advisor to pull it all together, and it seems pretty clear that a lot of the pre-existing voice resellers are not going to make the transition.
  • Virtualization is moving from optional to mandatory. I did a separate post on virtualization at UCStrategies here with the point that not all vendors that check this box mean the same thing.
  • Hosted voice and hybrid models are coming, but there is still some confusion around not only what customers may actually need or want, but how they would like to purchase it.
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InterOp

By on May 26, 2011 in Telecom

May is a crazy month for conferences, and it is hard to keep up with the posts.

The Interop conference is a shadow of its heyday years, but still a significant event for networking technologies. It used to attract more of the telephony/telecom vendors, but not as much any more. The handful of UC equipment vendors there did draw pretty decent crowds.

The main theme of the conference, IMO, was virtualization – especially desktop virtualization with hints of mobile virtualization to soon be a big deal. At this time, according to the lad I spoke with in the VMware booth, no softphone is currently supported on a virtual desktop.

ShoreTel, Avaya, and Siemens (most of SEN’s booth was dedicated to Enterasys) were there. ShoreTel announced the latest versions of some of its software, and both Avaya and SEN were showing off iPad integration (Avaya announced, SEN shpping). (I am beginning to fear I may be the only person that does not own an iPad).

ALU took home a Best of Interop Award for its data center switch. It was cited by competition judge Kurt Marko for having the most compelling design and supporting products for building extremely scalable, cloud-like data center networks. Vidyo won yet another Best of Interop Award for its Adaptive Layering Architecture for mobiity… guess what, it works on an iPad.

Check out these two posts for more information:

UCStrategies.com: Interop 2011 Trip Report (from a UC Perspective)

Interop still has some kick to it. As many of you know, this was quite a conference in the 90s. Of course, back then it was N+I (Networld Interop). Evidently, the Networld folks went somewhere else. Despite the conference’s smaller size, it is still quite large and focused on networking technologies. However, there was a UC track, and some UC vendors and news at the event.
…A recap of some of the UC announcements at the show:…

NoJitter: It’s the Network, Stupid

…In large data centers, bigger benefits come from network gear supporting mesh technologies. Most data centers use a three-tier model–edge, aggregators, and core–optimized for hierarchical (north-south) traffic. The problem is that cloud centers are increasing traffic between servers (east-west), requiring faster mesh solutions. Alcatel-Lucent won this month’s Best of Interop award thanks largely to its unprecedented fabric capacities. The density, value, and latency of these kinds of products bring data centers (and Ethernet) to a whole new level…

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Skype For Asterisk Was Already Dead!

By on May 25, 2011 in Telecom
The big story this week (so far), Skype for Asterisk (SFA) comes to its end. The official notification reads:

Skype for Asterisk will not be available for sale or activation after July 26, 2011.

Skype for Asterisk was developed by Digium in cooperation with Skype. It includes proprietary software from Skype that allows Asterisk to join the Skype network as a native client. Skype has decided not to renew the agreement that permits us to package this proprietary software. Therefore Skype for Asterisk sales and activations will cease on July 26, 2011.

This news arrived two weeks after Microsoft’s announcement to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion. This caused many to conclude that SFA’s demise is part of Microsoft’s dastardly plot to destroy all goodness in the world. Some of these theories can are seen here:
Microsoft Kills Skype For Asterisk – Slashdot
Skype Kills Off “Skype For Asterisk” – A Sign of the New Microsoft
Microsoft Kills Skype For Asterisk
R.I.P. Skype for Asterisk « Skype Journal
So it begins. Skype for Asterisk falls. 

Now a good debunking requires a common frame of reference, so a short background on SFA. The Digium Alliance partnership was announced in 2008, and SFA was in beta in 2009. It was a pretty ingenious concept, connect Skype to a PBX. Prior attempts at this were all miserable – take a look at VoSKY. But what was really cool about SFA was it was more than basic voice. SFA provided bi-directional integration with Skype that included presence and SkypeName dialing. No other solution had or has done this with Skype.

It was a coup for Asterisk, and it was really big for Skype as it had conquered the individual user, but still sought corporate adoption. Going out on a limb here, perhaps Skype’s limited corporate success can be partially attributed to its fickle strategies. SFA was first, then came Skype for SIP, then the program changed to Skype for Business, and its current effort to conquer the enterprise is called Skype Connect.
All of these subsequent attempts, were/are effectively SIP trunks. Dumb SIP trunks. No presence,  no outbound dialing to SkypeIDs. The service is primarily implemented for cheap long distance – not unified communications.
SFA was off to a great start. It got a lot of positive attention and licenses were selling. But the product had some unusual limitations – was Skype committed to it? In a post, Tim Panton, believes Skype wasn’t – that Skype hobbled the product. He points to an incredibly slow development/beta period, public friction, and odd license restrictions.

While SFA was still in beta, Skype launched Skype for SIP. Evidently, Skype liked the idea of connecting to a PBX – at least its voice services. Skype for SIP, looked to the PBX like a SIP voice trunk, the lowest common denominator of VoIP - simple and cheap to implement. The service initially launched on ShoreTel systems. Support for several additional systems and gateways including Avaya, Cisco, and SIPFoundry followed – but never for Asterisk.

It is easy to say that SFA was better than Skype for SIP, it was. But the advantages required education, commitment, budget, and administrators willing to set it up. It addressed a need that people didn’t understand. It required training and vision. Conversely, people understood long distance savings. Plus, everyone knows how to dial a phone. SFA faltered before it got out of the gate. Digium tried to spin damage control (http://blogs.digium.com/2009/03/26/the-rumors-of-our-death/), but Skype For SIP just had a more attractive cost/benefit/risk proposition.
SFA is big news this week, but it didn’t come up much in 2010 or 2011 before this week. It has been dying on the vine waiting to be put out of its misery.
I do love a good conspiracy, and it would be great to pin this on Microsoft.
Speaking of conspiracies, don’t even try to convince me that Darth Vadar had nothing to do with the destruction of the Death Star – he willed it. Come on, he just happened to be safely aboard a TIE fighter when it was destroyed?
But MS shutting down SFA is weak.
For starters, I might just subtly point out that Digium is the one that killed SFA – not Skype. UPDATE: This is wrong. Skype killed SFA, not Digium.  Now it is possible Digium is a covert MS controlled front. Consider this, its CEO presents how to run a business on open source – and then publicly blogs about how his company was forced to shut down while it cleaned up its mess.  
Another factor to consider is the Microsoft-Skype deal is agreed, but not done. Microsoft is not running Skype yet, and it is pretty unlikely the boys in Redmond are so worried about SFA that it needed to use back door nods and winks to kill it months before taking over the company. I heard a rumor that the whole deal actually nearly fell apart when Ballmer learned about SFA.
I think I will also take this opportunity to dispel another related yet separate topic that comes up. I keep hearing that MS will ruin Skype because Microsoft is a proprietary company. Microsoft may indeed ruin Skype and Microsoft may indeed be a proprietary company. But let’s be fair, few companies are more proprietary than Skype.
Skype uses its own clients, its own codecs, its own signaling, and its own firmware licensed to hardware partners. It does not interface with any other networks or equipment other than basic voice services. How its network actually functions, its resilience, reliability, encryption and security is a guarded secret.The logic that MS will ruin it because Skype is open and MS is not is hypocritical jabberwockey. If anything, Skype might teach MS a thing or two about being proprietary.
So that leaves the question: why did Skype kill off SFA this week and not next or the week before? To that, I have no frick’n idea. Maybe because they had an obligation to support it until now? Maybe because the Skype MS news earlier this month reminded them it still existed (I forgot), maybe because aliens that control Skype insisted. There could be several reasons, and it’s a reasonable question. Why Microsoft killed SFA, isn’t. (updated paragraph).
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