ShoreTel Partner Conference - Timing ISN'T Everything

Lots to digest from the 2012 edition of ShoreTel's Partner Conference, and I have a couple of takeaways to share that UCStrategies followers will find of particular interest. ShoreTel probably isn't top of mind when thinking about UC, but they're used to that, so let me start with a marketing-related takeaway.

If you follow what I or a number of other UCStrategies Experts have been writing about ShoreTel, you'll know that the company is on a solid growth curve - profits notwithstanding. Despite the fact that they've reached critical mass - on track for $300 million in revenues - and continue to gain share, they're not a household name. Anyone attending their recent partner events will know that being competitive isn't the issue - we regularly hear that ShoreTel wins more than their fair share of bids. The challenge is getting a seat at the table, and a key strategic focus continues to be raising the consideration rate for RFPs, along with building brand recognition.

I'm not here to talk about how they should do that, but to say that their recent successes have made ShoreTel a solid Tier 2 player, and I don't think anyone would dispute that, at least for the North American market. More importantly, if ShoreTel executes well on their roadmap plans, they will be ready, willing and able to take a serious run at the two majors who dominate IP telephony, Avaya and Cisco.

This really isn't news, but if you were there, the Pac-Man visual showing ShoreTel gobbling up these giants was a fun way to get the message across and empower partners to believe the world is their oyster. You could argue the reference to Commodore-era technology was too clever by half, making them look behind the times and thus incapable of overtaking the leaders. Better yet, take a Frogger-type leap of logic and say this is by design, intended to lull the competition into thinking ShoreTel doesn't have the goods, but those of us in the fold know full well that they do. Perhaps the use of a video game analogy is a clue as to how they're going to take down their Donkey Kong rivals.

Enough animated speculation - let's get to the point, which is this - UC is core to Avaya and Cisco's business, and to hurt these players, ShoreTel must step up their game and compete on this value proposition. To date, they really haven't done that, but last week we saw some new things and heard about the strategies that could very well get them there. ShoreTel's core business is still IP telephony, and they may not have the full collaboration suite of Cisco, Avaya, Siemens, etc., but do have enough pieces to serve the UC needs of the mid-market pretty effectively.

With UC being such a fluid concept, ShoreTel's version could play very well with both their customers and channel partners. In fact, they didn't talk about UC all that much, but demonstrated several examples that integrate nicely across a variety of endpoints, providing an intuitive UC user experience. The key is to focus on what they believe the market values - being "brilliantly simple." As I've often written, end users don't think about UC - they think about the utility that various applications bring them. ShoreTel's customers are generally not so leading edge that UC is in their everyday vernacular. What they understand - and value - are solutions that are easy for employees to use and for IT to manage, and that's how ShoreTel goes to market.

A lot of the good stuff they shared is under NDA, so you'll just have to take my word that you're going to see a more fully-rounded offering from ShoreTel in 2013. However, what I will say is that you'll soon be hearing about some new things for mobility and video applications, both of which add a key layer of richness to any flavor of UC. We heard talk about ShoreTel being ready for the post-PC and post-phone era, and if they can deliver on what we saw, it will be much easier to associate them with UC.

So, what about timing, as per the title of this article? There are lots of examples of companies being too early and too late to market, and the upside for UC being both an amorphous concept and still in the early adopter stage - at least in the mid-market - is that there's plenty of room for innovation. Not only that, but nobody really has the ideal value proposition, so it's not too late for vendors like ShoreTel to catch up with the early leaders. I've got two specific examples of timing from the conference to illustrate this.

First is video, which has long been noted as a missing piece for ShoreTel. That may be true, but this hasn't really hurt their growth, and while video is coming into its own now, vendors haven't really been able to monetize it. Cisco may have gotten the ball rolling with telepresence, but these solutions are not the answer for SMBs and small enterprises. Demand for video has been difficult to validate, but today, the momentum seems to be more with desktop video, not immersive telepresence.

This is actually good news for ShoreTel, in that the barriers to entry for video are relatively low, and adding it now will only strengthen their story. Kevin Gavin, their CMO, summed it up well by saying "the world doesn't need another room-based video system," and while not having video may have cost them a few deals, "we're doing just fine, plus the business case isn't there yet." I totally agree, and like their chances coming to market with cloud-based video, and that brings me to the second example.

As you probably expected, it's cloud. To me, this really was the biggest storyline last week. I've done my share of analysis on the M5 acquisition, which has been fully folded into ShoreTel, and now branded as Sky. Like video, the stars are lining up nicely now for cloud, and we heard plenty about the hefty CAGR anticipated through 2015. If you think video is up for grabs, cloud is even more so, which was a key message from Sky's GM Dan Hoffman. I fully agree with that, and while a lot of people don't see the fit with M5, if they make this work, this could be the most important deal they ever make.

In short, the timing now looks very good for Sky, as desktop video is hot and the cloud is a great way for SMBs to bring UC to all the endpoints, both fixed and mobile. What M5 brings is a proven platform and business model, and ShoreTel brings them a much bigger stage to play on. Of course, the real challenge is getting the channels to sell it and figure out how they can go to market with both premise and cloud-based offerings.

There's good reason to believe this will take some time to figure out, so success is far from certain. However, I believe that ShoreTel is the right type of company doing this at the right time. They know that premise is going to lose share to cloud, so they've hedged their bets with M5, and aren't losing time trying to figure out cloud on their own.

Another aspect of the timing theme is rooted in the immediate present. The impact of Hurricane Sandy extended to this event by exposing the vulnerability of the cloud. Sky's data center is in lower Manhattan, and Dan Hoffman noted that one-third of their customers were down at one point. Being an emerging space, most cloud communications offerings are regional and lack a fully redundant infrastructure to protect against these scenarios.

Actually, the timing for Sky was particularly bad as their second data center in Chicago is almost - but not fully redundant with Manhattan, and had this occurred down the road a bit, they would likely only had a few customers without service. In this regard, Sandy was a timely reminder that cloud isn't ready yet to conquer the communications world, but I don't think anyone's faith was badly shaken last week as to where the future lies.