By Chuck Culwell:
Hiscall recently participated in the Shoretel Champion Partner Conference 2012 held November 7-9 at Orlando, FL. I was one of five Hiscall associates, along with Tony Holmes, Patricia Terry, Steven Ross and Joey Eleazer, honored to
attend this year. This is my second ShoreTel Champion Conference following last year’s trip to Chicago. It seemed to me this year’s conference was larger and better attended than last year’s. This was later validated by ShoreTel executive keynote presentations stating it was the largest to date. Perhaps the increased participation is indicative of the successful gains ShoreTel continues to make in the IP telephony market. (Pictured from left to right: Chuck Culwell, Patricia Terry, Staci Frazior, Tony Holmes, Jeff Lowe, and Steven Ross.)
The partner conferences are important tools for communicating the state and direction of the business and debuting the latest technology. In addition, it is one special time to strategize with executives, sales, and technical teams. While the time relating with our ShoreTel team was invaluable, the conference offered also the opportunity to interact with ShoreTel vendor partners and Innovation Network members demonstrating integration with ShoreTel Unified Communications and Enterprise Contact Center. Some of those attending this year’s conference are also Hiscall solutions partners Acme Packet, CallCopy, Mutare, Plantronics, and Trivium Systems. It does seem at times the communications business makes a small world. Our ShoreTel distributor, Scansource, hosted a great evening viewing Disney Epcot’s fireworks show.
One particularly interesting executive keynote was delivered by Dan Hoffman, President of ShoreTel’s Cloud Division. In his address, he discussed the rapidly growing market for cloud-based unified communications. ShoreTel Sky was launched following ShoreTel’s acquisition of the well established cloud-based unified communications provider M5 Networks. I like the approach not re-inventing the wheel, but partnering with a market leader that allows ShoreTel and its partners an opportunity quickly bringing to market new solutions offerings and revenue streams. In addition to the keynotes and general sessions, the conference offered opportunities for continued learning in sales and technical breakout sessions with the goal of helping partners become better equipped to deliver products and services. Expect great things in the coming year from your Hiscall team.
