ShoreTel

Skype for SIP Beta Now Open!

December 2, 2009

Skype today announced that their Skype for SIP beta program is now "open" to everyone. I was invited to their private beta to test it and have been pleased with the results so far. Though if you read my article you will see I do have some price concerns.

Check out the news...

LUXEMBOURG, 2 December 2009 -- Skype is opening up the Skype for SIP beta program to allow businesses of all sizes to utilize Skype for SIP with their existing SIP-based PBX or Unified Communications (UC) systems. By using Skype for SIP, companies can save money on calls around the world, while also changing how customers globally reach them.

A company's IT administrator just creates and registers a Skype Business Control Panel (BCP) for the organization and then follows the instructions to configure Skype for SIP to work with its existing SIP-enabled communications system.

Posted in SIP, ShoreTel, Skype, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

Skype for Cisco Interoperable with Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series

September 23, 2009

Posted in SIP, ShoreTel, Skype, TMCnet, VoIP

ShoreTel Lands 1st 'Skype for SIP' interoperability

September 9, 2009

ShoreTel is the first company to land SIP interoperability with Skype for SIP - before Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, Nortel, or any Asterisk-based PBX. I can't help but find the irony in this news since ShoreTel did not support third-party SIP phones/endpoints until ShoreTel 8 was released in 2008. Thus, ShoreTel was pretty late to embrace the SIP standard for endpoints, which forced users to use ShoreTel's proprietary phones. Though to be fair, Cisco was pretty late to the game as well, finally embracing third-party SIP phones back in 2006.

Posted in Avaya, Reviews, SIP, ShoreTel, ShoreTel, Unified Communications, VoIP

SIP Print SME VoIP Recording Appliance Launches

September 1, 2009

SIP Print is announcing today the general availability of a new, enterprise-class call recording platform for mid-market enterprises. The new SIP Print SME platform offers support for up to 200 seats per location, along with RAID hot-swappable drive bays, dual hot-swappable power supplies, and a Core 2 Quad Series processor. Today's announcement is being issued in conjunction with TMC's ITEXPO Conference in Los Angeles.

According to SIP Print, SIP Print SME is a new, more powerful appliance designed for the needs of small and mid-size enterprises, or any organization with the requirement to record up to 200 seats per location.

"We introduced our highly affordable SMB product one year ago to meet the needs of small business with a need to record calls for training, QA, or compliance purposes, but simply couldn't justify the expense or hassle of the legacy recording systems on the market," said Jonathan Fuld, CTO for SIP Print. "Since that time we've seen tremendous demand for a similar, but more powerful system in the mid-market enterprise arena. We're pleased to introduce SIP Print SME as the ideal solution for mid-sized enterprises with the need for a system that is easy to install, easy to use and maintain, and easy to afford."

SIP Print SME is a 1U appliance and is certified as compatible and interoperable with many of today's leading IP PBX systems, including: Allworx, Aastralink, ADTRAN, Altigen, Avaya Distributed Office, Cisco, Epygi, Fonality, Grandstream, Mitel, NEC 8100, NEC 8300, Nortel, ShoreTel, SIPfoundry, Toshiba, Zultys, 3Com, and more. As configured, SIP Print SME is capable of recording and storing the equivalent of one handset, 24x7 for 15 years.

Check out my recent review (last month) of their previous SIP Print appliance which I gave extremely high marks.

Posted in Asterisk, Avaya, ITEXPO, Reviews, SIP, ShoreTel, TMCnet, VoIP

SIP Print VoIP Appliance Review

August 12, 2009

Call recording on VoIP phone systems is critical because it can ensure good customer service, provide employee training, and offer liability protection. SIP Print offers a SIP-compliant VoIP recording appliance at a price point that is much lower than legacy analog or digital E1/T1 recording systems. Part of the reason is you don't have to pay for expensive Dialogic or NMS telephony hardware to interface with analog or digital trunks. Instead, SIP Print's appliances sit on the network and simply record the SIP VoIP traffic.

Posted in Asterisk, Avaya, SIP, ShoreTel, TMCnet, VoIP

The IP-PBX Energy Wars...

August 4, 2008

So today I get a new report from the Tolly Group stating that the ShoreTel Unified Communications system is significantly more energy efficient than the Cisco Unified Communications Manager. ShoreTel apparently topped Cisco in using less energy to drive VoIP communications in specific large, medium and small enterprise-class scenarios.

This energy usage comparison reminded me of Nortel's "The 'Nortel' Tax Relief Plan", which aims to "stop paying the 'Cisco Energy Tax' and save up to 40%". Tony Rybczynski who works for Nortel and writes a TMCNet blog called The HyperConnected Enterprise sparked some controversy with some of his blog posts promoting the fact that Nortel is more efficient than Cisco. He even cites one customer that put a stop order on a $2 million dollar Cisco order once they did the energy efficiency calculations.

Is that what it's come down to?

Posted in Avaya, Cisco, Nortel, SIP, ShoreTel, TMCnet, VoIP

Shoretel Rumors

May 1, 2008

SHORETEL UPDATE: 4/24/09

Could it be - with ShoreTel continuing to provide PBX solutions - that the rumors I reported about them nearly a year ago were false? Is it now clear that Rich's sources that sparked this article were wrong?

Shoretel seems to be going strong. In fact, while this article was written a long time ago, but thanks to its high ranking on search engines, it still sparks the occasional new comment from avid Shoretel fans.

You can read the comments below for other people's thoughts. There are many avid fans of the Shoretel platform that have come to Shoretel's defense.

Posted in Asterisk, Avaya, Cisco, ShoreTel, TMCnet, VoIP, Vonage

Mitel sues ShoreTel - What does it mean?

June 28, 2007

Some fellow TMCers were emailing back-and-forth about the Mitel lawsuit against Shoretel just before Shoretel launched their IPO. A few moments later, Jon Arnold emailed me, a bunch of TMCers, Om, VoIPCentral, Ken Camp, Russell Shaw, and a few other bloggers & journalists about this bit of news and what it meant. Go check out Jon's post here where he makes an analogy to the Verizon lawsuit against Vonage, another VoIP player around the time of their IPO.

As a result of the lawsuit, the ShoreTel IPO is up in the air.

My email response to everyone in the thread was "Interesting indeed.. -that is, for mid-tier IP-PBX vendors fighting over the scraps that tier-1 IP-PBXs such as Cisco are leaving behind."

And then you have up-and-coming whipper snappers like Asterisk and Asterisk-based solutions such as Fonality, trixbox, etc.

Posted in ShoreTel, VoIP

VoIP Call Recording

August 22, 2006

VoIP call recording software for popular VoIP applications such as Skype, Google Talk, Windows Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and the rest is something I get asked about all the time. I can't tell you how many times I get email requests for recommendations for the best VoiP call recording software as well as requests for call recording software and/or hardware to record strictly PSTN or traditional PBXs conversations. Even the VoIP Forums has a few threads involving requests for call recording, including this three-page thread titled "Call Recording Software" and this VoIP Forum posting, "SOHO VoIP call recording".

It's tough when I get so many of these help requests (usually via email, sometimes via phone) since it is in my nature to want to help people out.

Posted in Avaya, Computer Software, Microsoft, ShoreTel, Skype, VoIP

IP-PBX market numbers continue to shine

May 30, 2006

Interesting IP-PBX stats within Infonetics's Enterprise Telephony report that shows IP-PBXs continued growth even with a generally slower 1st quarter. They also list the current IP-PBX market leaders (Cisco is listed as #1). This report doesn't list this, but I'd be curious the stats for "hosted IP-PBXs" that use SIP trunking with no customer premise IP-PBX equipment. My bet is that market is growing as well.

Overall PBX/KTS revenue down 2%, IP PBX up 1% in 1Q06

Despite a seasonally down quarter for the overall enterprise telephony market, the slow and steady move from circuit switching technology to packet switching technology remains evident, with worldwide TDM system revenue falling 11% and IP PBX revenue inching up 1% between 4Q05 and 1Q06, says Infonetics Research in its latest Enterprise Telephony report.

Combined, worldwide TDM and IP PBX systems revenue dipped 2% to $2.1 billion in 1Q06, but is 15% higher than a year ago.

Posted in Avaya, Polycom, ShoreTel, VoIP

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