ShoreTel and Alinean Launch Online TCO Tool for Unified Communications Business Case

SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwire - July 21, 2010) -  ShoreTel® (NASDAQ: SHOR), the leading provider of brilliantly simple IP phone systems with fully integrated unified communications (UC), today announced the availability of the ShoreTel Online TCO Tool -- powered by Alinean, the leading developer of research, methodologies and software tools to measure and quantify the value of return on investment from business-to-business solutions. This easy-to-use tool is accessible through ShoreTel's public Web site and is based on the TCO industry standards that Alinean has established, incorporating independent third party research from leading firms.

The ShoreTel TCO Tool leverages the significant resources of Alinean, including its worldwide metrics database. The tool analyzes TCO, including upfront acquisition costs management and support, for ShoreTel, legacy TDM systems and various competing UC vendors.

SHORETEL TCO TOOL: SUMMARY OF KEY FEATURES

• Many companies have realized that complexity is now one of the most significant drivers of cost in their business. The ShoreTel TCO Tool demonstrates that eliminating complexity with ShoreTel's brilliantly simple solutions can reduce their TCO by up to 40 percent or more.
• The ShoreTel TCO Tool combines upfront capital costs (including telephony system, network upgrade, hardware replacement and capitalized implementation charges); annual recurring operating expenses (including support services, moves, adds and changes, system management, electricity consumption, voice trunk, wide area network and long distance charges); and annual tax savings into a single TCO comparison.
• The ShoreTel TCO validates how TCO can be more than four times the upfront cost over a multi-year period.
• Once information is entered online, the TCO Tool provides very detailed reports for alternative vendors, including TCO, post-tax cash flow, pay-back period, return on investment, internal rate of return and net present value.
• Results from the ShoreTel TCO Tool are supported by ShoreTel's Lowest TCO Guarantee program, so that if ShoreTel's TCO Tool and/or additional independent data determine our TCO is higher than a competing solution, ShoreTel will lower its price to beat the competition.

QUOTES

Tom Pisello, Chairman, Alinean, Inc.
"Many IP Telephony buyers continue to make new purchase decisions based predominantly on up-front costs; however, the recurring operating costs for IPT often exceed four times the acquisition cost over the life of the system. Research has shown that these operating costs correlate closely with the complexity of implementing, managing and supporting the underlying technology. Conversely, solutions that reduce complexity and simplify management result in lower TCO. The ShoreTel TCO Tool helps customers model this complexity and compare TCO categories, considering both near and long term costs across multiple UC solutions, and providing a vital tool for buyers to make well-informed value-based purchase decisions."

Mark Arman, vice president of business development, ShoreTel
"Economic pressures and other corporate governance requirements mean that decision-making is now most often shared with the CFO and other financial decision makers. When it comes to unified communications, however, these decision makers often know little about the technology and its benefits. More than 500 ShoreTel customers have already met their UC financial decision-making requirements using the ShoreTel TCO Tool. By making it easily accessible through our Web site, we're confident more organizations will take advantage of the vital insight it provides to support the decision-making process."

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

Follow ShoreTel on Twitter and Facebook.
Subscribe to ShoreTel's blog.

RELATED LINKS & CONVERSATION

• ShoreTel Customer Success Stories (videos and case studies)
• ShoreTel Features
• ShoreTel Awards

About ShoreTel, Inc.
ShoreTel, Inc. (NASDAQ: SHOR) is the provider of brilliantly simple Unified Communication (UC) solutions based on its award-winning IP business phone system. We offer organizations of all sizes integrated, voice, video, data, and mobile communications on an open, distributed IP architecture that helps significantly reduce the complexity and costs typically associated with other solutions. The feature-rich ShoreTel UC system offers the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) and the highest customer satisfaction in the industry, in part because it is easy to deploy, manage, scale and use. Increasingly, companies around the world are finding a competitive edge by replacing business-as-usual with new thinking, and choosing ShoreTel to handle their integrated business communication. ShoreTel is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has regional offices in Austin, Texas, United Kingdom, Sydney, Australia and Munich, Germany. For more information, visit www.shoretel.com.