CKE and Associates of Irvine, California

 
SUNNYVALE, Calif – ShoreTel® (NASDAQ: SHOR), the leading provider of brilliantly simple Unified Communications (UC) software applications, announced that a growing number of enterprises have adopted its ShoreTel 360 Legacy Migration Program and are choosing ShoreTel to tightly integrate feature-rich UC capabilities in multivendor PBX environments. ShoreTel distributors include, TOTLCOM, KTS NETWORK SOLUTIONS and VOIP ADVISORS.

"Increasing numbers of corporations with legacy phone systems are looking for ways to leverage their existing investments as they transition to UC without immediately ripping out and replacing their entire legacy PBX infrastructure," said John W. Combs, Chairman and CEO at ShoreTel. "The ShoreTel 360 Legacy Migration Program allows these companies to reap the benefits of a complete ShoreTel UC solution across the entire enterprise—even in locations where they are not ready to displace their existing platforms, protecting earlier PBX investments as they migrate to pure IP-based solutions as time and budget permit."

ShoreTel cross-platform solutions have been proven in production deployments with ShoreTel front-ending legacy Nortel, Avaya, Cisco, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Mitel and NEC platforms.

The ShoreTel 360 Legacy Migration Program includes implementation resources for deploying a suite of applications including UC, unified messaging, multichannel contact center, conferencing and collaboration, personalized communications and mobility services, along with enterprise resource management tools. Based on open standards, ShoreTel consolidates and simplifies enterprise-wide communications with coordinated dial plans, trunking services, and employee database management across disparate systems.

ShoreTel supports various deployment models ranging from basic to highly sophisticated, including:

Simple tie-line integration that supports coordinated dial plans and allows the PBXs to hand traffic to each other reducing telecom costs.
 
Voicemail replacement in which the locations with the legacy PBXs continue to use the features of the old PBX but upgrade their legacy voicemail with ShoreTel unified messaging. This offers the advantage of using ShoreTel's advanced UM capabilities across the entire enterprise.

Full ShoreTel UC integration where the multi-location enterprise has a mixed environment with ShoreTel at some locations while the old legacy PBXs stay in place at others as part of a planned migration that can occur over time. Every user, across all locations, gets the benefits of the ShoreTel UC experience, abandoning the legacy PBX features while the business salvages the use of the legacy PBX for the desktop phone.
"Customers are thrilled to learn that they can embrace the ShoreTel unified communications solution across their entire multi-site enterprise while salvaging their previous investment in their legacy PBX platforms. In particular, Nortel customers who want to transition gradually are looking for alternatives besides Avaya. ShoreTel's distributed architecture solution represents a viable alternative that seamlessly supports these systems in a manner that is easy for users and administrators. There is no need for customers to wait for what Avaya's Aura is promising when ShoreTel can support legacy integration today," Combs added.

The brilliant simplicity of the ShoreTel cross platform solutions on legacy platforms have already shown positive results in deployments among multivendor customers with limited IT resources. Successful deployments include SEH America, a leading supplier of silicon wafer technologies, which integrated its ShoreTel solutions with legacy Nortel systems now serving over 800 employees on its main campus. "By leveraging ShoreTel's open interfaces, we provide new unified communication applications to our employees as we migrate to a pure IP solution over time," said Kenton Dolan, system administrator at SEH America. "ShoreTel's simplified administration has reduced complexity and support costs immensely. Our employees rave about the new communications applications, resulting in higher productivity, mobility and accessibility."