ShoreTel Announces Converged Conferencing 7.1 with ShoreTel 8.1 Call Manager

ShoreTel, a provider of Pure IP Unified Communications (UC) solutions, has announced that it has extended the UC user experience through the integration of its enhanced ShoreTel (News - Alert) Converged Conferencing 7.1 solution with the ShoreTel 8.1 Call Manager.

The combination works together to dramatically improve day-to-day communications by letting users quickly host meet-me audio and Web conferences, chat securely via IM, and instantly share documents. All this can be done with a single mouse click from the same interface they use for voice communications.

This end-to-end solution is designed for simplicity, ease-of-use and affordability. It is positioned for use with unified voice communications conferencing and eliminates the need for more complicated and expansive hosted conferencing solutions.

The ShoreTel Converged Conferencing 7.1 solution also encrypts the instant messaging flow between enterprise users to ensure proprietary information is safe from exposure to the open Internet.

Positioned as affordable and easy to implement, the ShoreTel Converged Conferencing 7.1 solution creates a single vendor solution for ad hoc collaboration to provide enterprise-grade audio, Web conferencing and secure Instant Messaging.

The conferencing solution is designed to increase productivity, thereby allowing users to schedule one-time, recurring and reservation-less conferences. This provides the flexibility to seamlessly add conferencing tools as needed during a call, enabling users to record conference audio and presentations.

Kevin Gavin, vice president of marketing, ShoreTel, said in a company statement: "In this challenging economic environment, companies are looking for communications solutions that can help them reduce costs while delivering enterprise-grade security and reliability.”

“Today, our customers can affordably extend the tools they use for voice calls to conferencing and collaboration - simplifying their communications, increasing productivity, and significantly driving down costs by eliminating the expense of a hosted service," added Gavin.

Kevin Mengelt, chief information officer, JT Packard, a Power Plus (News - Alert)! Company, contributed in the statement: "As the nation's largest provider of network-critical power equipment, we maintain service agreements in all 50 states, and our staff depend on ShoreTel Converged Conferencing to work together to deliver a comprehensive package of power products and services to our customers.”

“With so many people using our conferencing system, the ability of Converged Conferencing 7.1 to reserve ports allows us to avoid conflicts and reduce costs through more efficient conference port management," Mengelt added.

Unified Communications (News - Alert) are quickly becoming a part of daily communications within the enterprise, whether they are a welcome change or not. The best move for the company to make is to embrace the technology offerings, such as those offered by ShoreTel, and take advantage of the benefits that it can provide. In doing so, they can better control the communications, streamlining processes and ensuring they are place to benefit the company.