Unified Communications Solutions Provider ShoreTel Receives 2010 CRN Networking Vendor of the Year Award

ShoreTel (News - Alert) has won the 2010 CRN Networking Vendor of the Year award – which is considered by the industry as the UK's most prestigious IT accolade.

According to a company statement, ShoreTel was honored because of the strength of its channel program and the success of ShoreTel Financial Services, the Accelerate Marketing Bureau Service, fully supported on-boarding packages, incentives and promotions programs.

The CRN judges, made up of representatives from both resellers and distributors, gave ShoreTel the award over entries from companies such as Cisco (News - Alert), Extreme, Netgear, Emulex and ZyXel.

The judging process was strengthened this year.

"The aim of the new judging system was to bring gravitas back to the awards and level the playing field – just because you are a big player doesn't guarantee you will win," said Sara Yirrell, editor of CRN. "Now it is decided by the quality of entry."

The judges noted that ShoreTel had strong case studies as well as strong customer testimonials, with a strong UK focus.

The panel also noted ShoreTel's level of customer satisfaction.

The company adds that ShoreTel delivers 100 percent of its business through the channel, unlike many of its competitors in the industry.

"Our partners are an extension of ShoreTel and a core part of our success. We're delighted to have received the CRN Networking Vendor of the Year Award which acknowledges our efforts and gives us an additional drive to continue building our channel momentum," said Tom Perry, director of marketing, EMEA, at ShoreTel. "We look forward to further strengthening our partnerships and introducing innovative channel incentives which will increase our market share in both the UK and EMEA."

ShoreTel also has won awards for customer satisfaction. The company has been rated the top IP telephony provider for seven successive years by Nemertes Research.

In other company news, according to a report on TMCnet, ShoreTel recently achieved VMware Ready status. The designation means the latest ShoreTel software has passed a detailed evaluation and testing process, managed by VMware, and is now listed in the VMware Partner Product Catalog.

ShoreTel is a provider of IP phone systems with fully integrated Unified Communications (News - Alert) (UC).

ShoreTel is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has regional offices in Austin, Texas, the United Kingdom, Sydney, Australia and Munich, Germany. For more information, visit www.shoretel.com.