ShoreTel vs. Complexity

In an attempt to battle unnecessary and costly complexity, ShoreTel has begun an anti-complexity movement for the IP Telephony industry.

ShoreTel has denounced the way vendors commonly piece together solutions from several different proprietary technologies, creating higher long-run costs. Although it protects the vendors' positions and creates a continuous revenue stream, it's a practice far more complex and costly to consumers.

Instead, ShoreTel has worked towards removing complexity from its system, engineering a solution for optimized IP-based communication and collaboration. It includes simple management and end-user features integrating voice, video, data, and mobile communication, and by reducing complexity, costs go down, as well as total cost of ownership

"ShoreTel's 'Brilliantly Simple' campaign is resonating with both customers and channel partners," says UCStrategies co-founder and UC Expert Blair Pleasant. "The ShoreTel channel partners I've spoken with are very favorable toward the ShoreTel solution and lack of complexity, noting that the product is easy to purchase, implement, and use, but is full featured and well designed."

Pleasant adds, "ShoreTel's new anti-complexity campaign will build on this concept by comparing ShoreTel's 'all in one' solution to its competitors' solutions that are based on integrating various legacy solutions, as well as products developed based on mergers and acquisitions. One ad takes aim at Cisco with a clever graphic using the Cisco logo, comparing the complexity of Cisco's solutions with ShoreTel's, noting that Cisco's solutions require expensive training, service, support, and forklift upgrades. ShoreTel's solution is certainly less complex than many of its competitors' offerings, resulting in lower costs for customers. However, I dispute ShoreTel's claim that solutions from other vendors lock you in to that vendor any more than ShoreTel's solutions do. Also, ShoreTel's solution still requires integration with some third-party products like videoconferencing solutions, which adds its own complexity."

For more information, visit www.shoretel.com.