By leveraging common distribution capabilities, ShoreTel and Polycom say they can help enable UC Everywhere and empower businesses to protect their existing investments in standards-based technologies as well as choose best-of-breed enterprise solutions that are a better alternative to vendor lock-in and proprietary technologies.
Both ShoreTel and Polycom say they have UC offerings that are affordable and scalable for businesses of any size. From enterprise customers to small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), the Polycom and ShoreTel solutions are flexible and cost-effective. Analyst firm Gartner rated ShoreTel “Strong Positive,” the highest possible rating in its “MarketScope for Unified Communications for the SMB Market, North America.”
This offering will provide customers the flexibility of an open and interoperable ShoreTel and Polycom solution that unifies and simplifies communication across voice and video and telepresence solutions including the Polycom UC Intelligent Core, as well as messaging applications. ShoreTel’s IP telephony and UC solutions will combine with Polycom’s telepresence systems to deliver customers a seamlessly integrated system with proven reliability and quality, simplicity and lower total cost of ownership, by using technologies like H.264 High Profile, which reduces bandwidth requirements for high definition video by up to 50 percent.
”ShoreTel’s long-standing commitment to standards-based technologies and open-architected systems gives our customers maximum flexibility to deploy custom solutions that suit their specific business needs,” said Mark Arman, vice president of business development at ShoreTel. “We are pleased to partner with Polycom and ensure our customers achieve truly interoperable, scalable and brilliantly simple visual communication solutions.”
The expanded relationship is part of the ShoreTel Technology Partner Program (TPP), which provides market leaders the opportunity to increase their reach by connecting directly with ShoreTel’s growing community of channel reseller partners. ShoreTel is also a Polycom ARENA partner.
The ability for businesses to communicate in the most effective and efficient manner despite the infrastructure in place is a significant business advantage that helps customers maximise the investment in their communication systems. Polycom and ShoreTel are committed to a standards-based, open architecture that liberates organisations from managing complex legacy and proprietary systems that cost millions of dollars to maintain.
“ShoreTel is an important long-term partner to Polycom, and this strategic offering is a natural evolution of our successful partnership – one that reflects the evolving and dynamic UC market,” said Ron Myers, senior vice president of Global Channels. “Both companies have a commitment to offering best-in-class, standards-based communications, allowing our customers to choose the best UC solutions to meet their needs. By extending support of Polycom telepresence and Polycom UC Intelligent Core offerings to the ShoreTel platform, ShoreTel is helping Polycom to deliver on our UC Everywhere vision.”
“At ScanSource Communications, we are committed to delivering UC and telephony solutions that will help our reseller partners grow their business and remain ahead of the competition - and as a strategic partner to both Polycom and ShoreTel, we are thrilled about this combined solution,” said Buck Baker, president, ScanSource Communications. Not only does it enable resellers to deliver industry-leading solutions to their end-user customers, but it also affords them the opportunity to source their products from one location and wrap them with the value-added services our customers have come to expect.”
The ShoreTel and Polycom solutions will be distributed through joint value-added distributors, ScanSource and Westcon. Partners and resellers will be able to offer a broad range of UC and video solutions combining the ShoreTel and Polycom products that best fit their customers’ business needs.