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ShoreTel/Extreme Networks Partnership Promises VoIP BenefitsTMCnet Contributing Editor Joint customers of ShoreTel Inc., a global IP PBX and customer satisfaction company and Extreme Networks Inc., a provider of converged networks, will soon enjoy high-performing and reliable end-to-end VoIP and data network solution as the companies have announced a partnership.
Customers will enjoy ease of use, best-in-class management products, a distributed architecture and reliability from ShoreTel that complement Extreme Networks high-performance switching solutions in order to deliver top-notch voice and data convergence. Extreme Networks offers the “Go Purple” technology solutions partnering program of which ShoreTel is a member. The program is designed to enable customers to easily choose industry-proven and interoperable products. Extreme Networks’ products are positioned as providing network resiliency, availability and security for enterprises including BlackDiamond, Alpine and Summit switching solutions. For smooth integration assistance, ShoreTel recently completed interoperability testing with Extreme Networks where its products proved to work seamlessly with Extreme Networks’ voice-class Ethernet switches. International Imaging Materials Inc. (IIMAK), a North American manufacturer of thermal transfer ribbons, has already deployed ShoreTel phone systems with Extreme Networks solutions. Sal Ianello, IIMAK technical services manager, stated that IIMAK sought the benefits of a converged voice/data network while being assured that the company received a reliable infrastructure. IIMAK chose to deploy ShoreTel’s IP telephony system on top of the Extreme Networks data network, which has proven to be a great combination for a highly reliable, easy-to-use and high-performance VoIP solution that delivers greater productivity and flexibility for users. Ianello added that with the remote locations that IIMAK has in foreign countries, they benefit from ShoreTel’s VoIP to do extension-to-extension dialing. The company uses VLAN’s to separate data and voice and has established a branch-to-branch VPN connections for security. Ianello acknowledges that without Extreme Networks, IIMAK wouldn’t have been able to implement VoIP as quickly and cost effectively. According to Suresh Gopalakrishnan, vice president of marketing for Extreme Networks, enterprises want to take advantage of the benefits of an open converged network that supports IP telephony to improve their productivity and increase their operational flexibility. Extreme Networks’ relationship with ShoreTel, whose distributed platform integrates seamlessly with Extreme Networks’ architecture, provides joint customers with a winning VoIP solution. Steve Timmerman, vice president of marketing for ShoreTel contributed that assuring reliable and consistent delivery of voice traffic across the data network is the first and most important issue impacting VoIP deployment success. Extreme Networks products provide high-quality voice connections, voice-class availability, robust network security and simplified network management for the data network infrastructure that allows user to maximize the IP telephony benefits provided by the ShoreTel system. The combination of ShoreTel’s experience in providing customers with solutions that have met high consumer expectations and the network architecture from Extreme Networks is a strong offering for enterprises attempting to acquire reliable and secure VoIP options. With all of the benefits that VoIP has to offer, it still poses a challenge to organizations that must rely on it for secure transmission of critical information. The IIMAK reference to remote locations in foreign countries is one which the joint partnership can capitalize on to drive growth. More and more companies are expanding globally and communications between all locations must be instant, reliable and secure. By providing organizations with solutions that can meet their next generation needs and wants without compromising security or productivity, both ShoreTel and Extreme Networks can align their strategies toward market dominance. On the flip side, competitors will not view this partnership as much of a threat as they will an opportunity to target the weaknesses in the partnership. ShoreTel and Extreme Networks will need to be constantly taking the proactive approach to development in order to identify weaknesses and eliminate them before the competition uses these weaknesses to capitalize on in order to propel their businesses forward. ------- Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC and has also written for eastbiz.com. To see more of her articles, please visit Susan J. Campbell’s columnist page. |