Fieldpoint Private Bank and Trust, a five-year-old financial firm based in Greenwich, Conn., competes with larger firms in New York City with extravagant IT budgets. The young financial firm began with Cisco Unified Call Center Express, but would lose its phones three to four times a year when the power went out. Joseph Larizza, chief administrative officer for Fieldpoint Private Bank and Trust, and his small IT team shopped around for a new telephony solution that offered better business continuity, but knew they didn’t have the resources for supporting on-premises equipment.”

Read More at SearchUnifiedCommunications.

The post SearchUnifiedCommunications | Cloud telephony: A potential hit or miss for businesses? appeared first on ShoreTel Sky.

It isn’t just classic ShoreTel, either. M5, now known as ShoreTel Sky, also adopted NPS as a customer loyalty measure back in 2008. It was cited as one of the characteristics that led to ShoreTel acquiring M5 in 2012. ShoreTel Sky has extremely low customer churn and higher average revenue per user – at least compared against other public measures. ShoreTel Sky has its own NPS value of 49. The score is third party validated, and publicly displayed on its website.

Read more at Unified Communications Strategies.

The post Unified Communications Strategies | ShoreTel’s Key Metric: NPS appeared first on ShoreTel Sky.

Dan Hoffman, president and general manager of ShoreTel’s Cloud Division, will now be chief strategy officer for all of ShoreTel. Keith Nealon, most recently divisional vice president, revenue, will succeed Hoffman heading up the cloud business. Both moves take effect Feb. 1.”

Read more at CRN.

The post CRN | ShoreTel Shuffles Cloud Division Management appeared first on ShoreTel Sky.

Hours before players from both teams would erupt in an ugly and unexpected on-court fistfight, IT specialists from either team more respectfully expressed their differing views over whether their unified communications systems should be hosted in the cloud.

Mireille Viau Verna, senior director of IT for the Brooklyn Nets, discussed the organization’s recent implementation of a cloud-based UC suite. The solution, ShoreTel Sky, was based on technology initially from M5 Networks, which had since been acquired by and turned into the cloud wing of ShoreTel. Although Viau Verna cited cost and ease of use as the factors that made the cloud attractive, its disaster recovery and continuity benefits had also recently shone through.

Prior to the move to Brooklyn, the Nets’ business operations were held in East Rutherford, N.J., where Viau Verna says they “would have been slammed by Hurricane Sandy.” Potential outages to the on-premise UC system used at the New Jersey campus only would have made matters worse.”

Read more at ComputerWorld.

The post Computer World | Brooklyn Nets, Boston Celtics disagree…over the cloud appeared first on ShoreTel Sky.

Wessel, VP of technology for the Boston Celtics, is a self-described “hardware guy” who is willing to use hosted unified communications services as a backup and expansion supplement, but prefers to be able to walk into his server room on Boston’s Causeway Street, next to the TD Garden where the Celtics play, and make sure the system lights are blinking green. Verna, senior director of IT for the Brooklyn Nets, opted for hosted services to build out the technology capabilities for the Nets, in its first season in Brooklyn after moving from its previous New Jersey location.

At a press event hosted by unified communications vendor ShoreTel (both the Celtics and the Nets make extensive use of ShoreTel’s products), Wessel and Verna outlined why they selected their particular approaches to technology. Wessel favors the hybrid technology approach, which mixes physical devices with hosted services. Verna went all hosted.

Read more from Eric Lundquist  at InformationWeek.

The post Information Week | Celtics, Nets Score With Unified Communications appeared first on ShoreTel Sky.

For the first time, the report named UCaaS market leaders–ShoreTel (Nasdaq: SHOR), 8×8 (Nasdaq: EGHT), Thinking Phone Networks and West. In the 2011 report, Gartner did not identify any leaders because of the immaturity of the UCaaS market.

ShoreTel gained access to the UCaaS market through its acquisition of M5 Networks earlier this year for $168 million. In last year’s report, M5 was identified as a visionary company.”

Read more by Fred Donovan at FierceEnterpriseCommunicaitons.

The post Fierce Enterprise Communications | Garner Report Names ShoreTel Among UCaaS Leaders appeared first on ShoreTel Sky.

The Celtics recently deployed a premise-based ShoreTel UC system, and the Nets deployed a cloud-based ShoreTel UC system when they moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn this year.

Based on the feedback from the teams’ top technology execs, the systems are a success, so there is agreement–at least away from the basketball court.”

Read more at Fierce Enterprise Communications.

The post Fierce Enterprise Communications | Boston Celtics, Brooklyn Nets agree on one thing – ShoreTel UC appeared first on ShoreTel Sky.

“In 3-4 years, half the market will be hosted, and customers are increasingly demanding cloud,” said Dan Hoffman, President and GM ShoreTel Sky, and the former CEO of New York City-based M5 Networks. ShoreTel acquired M5 in February 2012; this move became the basis of ShoreTel’s cloud strategy.”

Read more at Unified Communications Strategies.

The post UC Strategies | ShoreTel Announces Cloud Strategy appeared first on ShoreTel Sky.

“The Boston Celtics went head to head with the Brooklyn Nets Wednesday, Nov. 28, in a heated, action-packed game that ended 95 to 83 in Brooklyn’s favor. It was the 15th game of Boston’s 2012 season, and, despite the eventual upset, Boston fans stuck it out with the Celtics until that final whistle blew.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes of it all is ShoreTel, whose unified communications (UC) solutions serve as the backbone to the Boston Celtics’ season. ShoreTel, along with its solution provider partner Harbor Networks, gave CRN a glimpse into how their voice and UC platforms keep the Celtics’ offices and executive team up and running.

The Celtics aren’t the only NBA team ShoreTel touts as a customer. In addition to the Los Angeles Lakers and Washington Wizards, the Brooklyn Nets — the Celtics’ opponent for the evening — also rely on ShoreTel for their voice and UC needs.

The Nets’ Senior Director of Information Technology Mireille Verna, said the Nets use ShoreTel’s cloud-based UC system – also known as ShoreTel Sky — and that the reliability has been rock-solid. The most recent testament to this, she said, was how well ShoreTel’s solutions withstood the wrath of Hurricane Sandy.

“[The Brooklyn office] was intact,” Verna said. “I attribute that to planning, to the stability of the system. … We were pleasantly surprised it didn’t go down. One less thing to worry about.”

Read more at CRN.

The post CRN | Behind The Scenes: How ShoreTel Keeps The Boston Celtics Running appeared first on ShoreTel Sky.

Several ShoreTel execs noted in their keynotes the projection of analyst firm Gartner that by 2015, 42% of the UC market will be in the cloud. And that’s only a starting point.

“In 3-4 years, half the market will be hosted, and customers are increasingly demanding cloud,” said Dan Hoffman, President and GM ShoreTel Sky, and the former CEO of New York City-based M5 Networks, whose acquisition by ShoreTel in February became the foundation of ShoreTel’s cloud strategy.”

The post eChannel Line| ShoreTel Lays Out Channel Vision for Cloud appeared first on ShoreTel Sky.