ShoreTel's Enhanced Unified Communications Solution Facilitates Greater Business Productivity and Collaboration

Latest Release Empowers Users to Integrate All Forms of Communication, Including Video, With Business Processes

SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 19 -- ShoreTel(R), Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOR) , a leading provider of Pure IP Unified Communications (UC) solutions, today announced the latest release of its award-winning unified communications system, release 8.0. This release streamlines business communications, offering customers more intuitive access to fully integrated voice, instant messaging, e-mail and video. With this release, ShoreTel is the first leading unified communications vendor to deliver a product that takes advantage of the most recent enhancement to the H.264 standard for video compression: Scalable Video Coding (SVC), enabling ShoreTel to provide high-quality video and network resiliency at an attractive cost to every desktop, including remote workers. ShoreTel also announced two new energy-efficient voice switches that drive down an enterprise's overall communications costs.

Enhanced Productivity and Collaboration

ShoreWare(R) Call Manager's third-generation desktop user interface offers tabbed windows that make users more productive by making it easier and faster to access voicemail, call history, directories and the speed dial list. The system also offers more intuitive call control features, anticipating user needs and presenting productivity-enhancing information and tools based on the situation. For example, when a user starts a call transfer, the phone status of the called party is shown in real time, letting the caller decide whether or not to proceed with the transfer.

ShoreTel's new ShoreWare Professional Call Manager supports easy-to-use, high-quality video (up to 640x480 resolution and up to 30 frames per second), making a video call as natural and simple as a voice call. Thanks to SVC, the highly resilient video is delivered with minimal delay, eliminating distance as an impediment to face-to-face conversations and making it easier for users across the enterprise to communicate and collaborate effectively. Easy-to-use, high-quality video calls support company initiatives to reduce travel expenses, reduce the impact on the environment, and support remote workers.

The Professional Call Manager also provides presence information and consolidates instant messaging with voice, video and e-mail for a true unified communications experience. With rich presence information, users immediately know who is available to respond quickly to a caller's need. A built-in soft phone capability keeps users productive even when a telephone isn't available.

"ShoreTel's UC solution is amazingly flexible and adapts to our needs so we don't have to adapt to it," said Owais Ilyas, IT manager at Genmab, who has deployed the latest version of ShoreTel's UC solution in the Denmark-based biotech company's U.S. office. "The new version has made enormous improvements in usability and allowed our staff to access the features they love more quickly. No other offering out there has an interface that is this easy to use."

Greater Deployment Flexibility: New Voice Switches, Support for SIP Devices

ShoreTel's new ShoreGear(R) 30 voice switch is targeted at branch locations with up to 10 users and can be reconfigured to support up to 30 IP phones, or to support SIP trunks or devices. The ShoreGear 24A voice switch supports the need for higher density analog phone deployments. It provides 24 analog ports and can be configured to support multi-party conference calls. ShoreGear voice switches are more environmentally friendly than competitive solutions. They use significantly less power, require less cooling, have a longer useful life, and take up less space, resulting in substantially lower carbon emissions.

ShoreTel's UC system also now includes built-in support for SIP endpoints, devices, and applications that comply with RFC 3261. Complementing the system's support for SIP trunking, SIP device interfaces give customers more flexibility to deploy the devices required for their specific business needs. Support for SIP devices does not require an expensive additional server, thus lowering total cost of ownership.

"The most exciting part of the latest ShoreTel upgrade for me is the videoconferencing and instant messaging capabilities. I'm looking forward to using those for greater collaboration," said Randy Adams, systems analyst at Smithco Engineering, a company with a trucking division that puts laptops with SIP converters into each truck. "But the system also has really strong business implications for us as well. Its support for SIP extensions are transforming our communications management. Each truck now becomes just another extension on our ShoreTel UC system, and we can easily see which SIP devices are in use."

Strong Industry Support

ShoreTel's dedicated pursuit of customer and partner satisfaction sets the company apart from other players in the industry. With a history of product excellence and outstanding services, ShoreTel consistently delights its customers and partners, and the latest version of the system has already been well received.

"Momentum for unified communications continues to build as companies of all sizes recognize that the ShoreTel UC system increases productivity and overall communications reliability while driving down the total cost of ownership," said Kevin Gavin, vice president of product marketing at ShoreTel. "With our latest release, we continue to break new ground, turning video into an everyday communications vehicle that dramatically enhances the ability of employees at different locations to collaborate and reduces the need for travel."

Pricing and Availability

Currently available in the U.S. only. ShoreWare Personal Call Manager is included in the base ShoreTel 8.0 user license. Additional per-user licenses include ShoreWare Professional Call Manager, $80; ShoreWare Operator Call Manager, $595; ShoreWare Agent Call Manager, $295; ShoreWare Supervisor Call Manager, $595; SIP Device License, $30. The ShoreGear 30 is priced at $1,595. The ShoreGear 24A is priced at $2,995.

Note: Not all products will be available in all countries. Please call ShoreTel or a local reseller for specific availability.

About ShoreTel, Inc.

ShoreTel, Inc., (NASDAQ:SHOR) is a leading provider of Pure IP Unified Communications solutions. ShoreTel enables companies of any size to seamlessly integrate all communications -- voice, video, messaging and data -- with their business processes. Independent of device or location, ShoreTel's distributed software architecture eliminates the traditional costs, complexity and reliability issues typically associated with other solutions. ShoreTel continues to deliver the highest levels of customer satisfaction, ease of use and manageability while driving down the overall total cost of ownership. ShoreTel is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and has regional offices in the United Kingdom, Sydney, Australia and Munich, Germany. For more information, visit http://www.shoretel.com/ or call 1-877-80SHORE.

  Kim Rose
  ShoreTel, Inc.
  408-331-3357
  krose at shoretel.com