To be honest...Your opinion about ShoreGears 1

[hibroth]

I heard about shoretel, I am a little bit courious about it.

What's your opinion about the sgear gateways and ShoreGear solutions in general ?
Did you have problems or particular issues implenting it ?

What do you think are the strenghts this solution have respect the competitors ?

thank you all

hb

 

[Deweyhumbolt]

I'm a Nortel guy, that has 5 remote locations using Shoretel. IMHO, it's the bomb. With Shoreware Manager I get access to all my locs at once. Flashing icons for alarms. Telephones are sleek, hate the handsets, and very sturdy. Well thought out system.

Gsmith is probably the expert, hopefully he'll post.

Adversity is Opportunity

 

[GSmitherman]

The thing I love is how easy ShoreTel is to install and maintain. I have installed ShoreTel for 4 years. We have NEVER replaced a ShoreGear switch. In the same time we have replaced several IP Office modules. Below are my opinions:

Strength:

Reliability - Rated 99.999% reliable.

Administration - Very easy for system administration. Anyone with knowledge of telephony will have no problems with the system administration. Can administer all sites on network from one location.

Installation - Easy to install with little customer down time. I have done numerous installs where the customer was without phone service for less than 30 seconds. (I used an existing T1 circuit). I have never installed a system that took over 3 hours.

Integration - Easy to integrate with Microsoft Outlook. If customers use Contacts, they will love using the Call Manager.

Call Manager - Easy to use software that allows user to handle calls. Operator Call Manager allows a drop and drag transfer.

Quality - ShoreTel sends out surveys for all of the installations. ShoreTel dealers must attain acceptable levels for their work. ShoreTel is committed to making sure not only is the product top of the line, but those who install their product are held to a high standard.

I could go on with more strengths, but hopefully you get the point.


Weakness:

Analog - ShoreTel is getting better with analog devices. In 8.0 they have a analog switch. Prior to this if you used an analog device you would eat up 5 IP resources. I always say ShoreTel at it's worst is better than Avaya at it's best. Sorry but Avaya is all I have actual experience with.


I hope this answered your questions. I believe that if all things are equal, you should choose ShoreTel.

 

[jneiberger]

We are an Avaya shop looking seriously at moving to ShoreTel. The only thing I've found about the ShoreTel system I don't like, so far, is the way the system handles E911. As I understand it, the system determines set location based on IP subnet, which is great if you have a different IP subnet for each site. That isn't the case for us, so we would have to renumber our entire network (many VLANs, hundreds of end devices) in order to implement the Shoretel stuff. That's not exactly a painless undertaking.

 

[GSmitherman]

911 Caller ID is setup in a variety of ways. Below shows the priority the ShoreTel will look before sending the ID information...

1. Caller ID
2. User's DID
3. CESID for the IP Range
4. CESID for the Switch
5. CESID for the Site
6. If nothing it sent, it will use the Caller ID for the associated trunk.

We have alot of multi-site customers spread all over the country and have had no issues with 911. I like using the event log to send the administrator's an email letting them know a 911 call was made. The information shows what station made the call and when it was made. The E911 add on package is pretty good. I have installed it for a few school corporations.

 

[flyingdutchmanVA]

Shoretel is a really good,solid IP solution. Easy to install and maintain. 8.1 opens up to 3rd party phones and other mobile goodies as well.

 

[OldPhoneGuy]

We migrated from two Avaya Definitys to ShoreTel this past spring and have not looked back. Two sites, 1360 users, and 800 IP phones at this time. GSmitherman about covered it.

 

[jneiberger]

OldPhoneGuy, does your Shoretel system have a lot of analog phones on it right now, or are you only using it for IP phones?

 

[OldPhoneGuy]

Currently running about 200 analog devices (Polycom conference phones, modems for our gas and water meters that are read remotely, TTY phones, fax machines that the users are unwillng to give up for the fax server we have, elevator phones, etc).