ShoreTel Takes No. 1 Market Share Position for UC Desktop Application Units Worldwide

Popular ShoreWare Call Manager Application Suite Rapidly Becoming Unified Communications Interface of Choice for Organizations of All Sizes


SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwire - April 1, 2009) - ShoreTel® (NASDAQ: SHOR), a leading provider of Pure IP Unified Communications (UC) solutions, is pleased to announce that it has achieved the No.1 market-share position worldwide for small and midsize businesses using its UC desktop application, according to latest data released by the Synergy Research Group. ShoreTel also is ranked sixth in market share for UC desktop units in large enterprises worldwide, according to the Synergy report, 'Q4 2008 Collaborative Applications Market Shares,' providing clear confirmation of ShoreTel's rapid growth in the UC market, and the increasing popularity of its easy-to-use and manage UC system.

In the SMB segment, ShoreTel beat the next closest competitor, Cisco, by almost 35 percent in sales of its popular ShoreWare® Call Manager application suite. The award-winning ShoreWare Personal Call Manager is included with every user license, and streamlines communications in a user-friendly, intuitive application.

"We have always believed that an easy-to-use yet powerful desktop application is the cornerstone of unified communications leadership, and ensuring that every ShoreTel user has access to this compelling tool is a key element of our commitment to delivering world-class customer satisfaction," said John W. Combs, chairman and CEO of ShoreTel. "This latest data confirms everything we've been hearing from our growing fan base -- ShoreTel's ease of use, highly available distributed architecture and low total cost of ownership are just some of the reasons why ShoreTel is becoming the platform of choice for organizations of all sizes."

The report by Synergy Research Group is the first in the industry to effectively quantify the number of desktop applications shipped by leading vendors from 2006 to 2008.

"Architecturally, ShoreTel built its PBX from the ground up as a Unified Communications platform, providing Collaborative Applications as a standard feature set," said Jeremy Duke, CEO, Synergy Research Group. "We believe this forward-thinking design has positioned ShoreTel as a market leader and has been fundamental to their market share gains in the face of much larger, capitalized competitors. While ShoreTel's initial success has been rooted in SMB, we believe ShoreTel has the product and the management team to aggressively target the enterprise UC market, which will lead to further market share gains."

ShoreTel is showcasing the latest release of its award-winning UC software in Booth 909 at VoiceCon Orlando 2009, from March 30th through April 2nd, and is hosting a partner pavilion in Booth 917 to demonstrate the growing number of ShoreTel-certified UC solutions providers who are taking advantage of ShoreTel's open platform.

For detailed information on ShoreTel products and features, click here.

RELATED LINKS & CONVERSATION

-- ShoreTel Features

-- ShoreTel blog

-- ShoreTel awards

About Synergy Research Group

Synergy Research Group (www.srgresearch.com) is a market research leader providing quarterly market share, analysis, forecasting, and consulting services to the telecom, mobile and networking industries. To view Synergy's SIA Web demo, visit www.srgresearch.com.

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 www.shoretel.com or call 1-877-80SHORE.

Contact Information: Press Contact: Rachel Shelton Eastwick Communications Tel: +650-480-4069 rshelton@eastwick.com

ShoreTel products ShoreTel chairman, president & CEO John W. Combs