ShoreTel brings UC applications to smartphones

Mobility is becoming the latest trend in business. Many companies are looking to aid the growing trends of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and remote workplaces and adding a unified communication (UC) option to existing hardware is the simplest way to accomplish it. A leading VoIP provider just announced a new venture to bring their existing UC systems to mobile devices.

Earlier this year, ShoreTel bought M5 Networks – a leading provider of hosted UC – for $146 million and on June 19, they announced the first collaborations. Customers of the M5 cloud division will now be able to access ShoreTel's voice and UC systems on any smartphone. Initially only applications for the iPhone will be supported, however BlackBerry and Android devices are expected to gain support by the end of the summer.

"The way people work has changed," ShoreTel's president of the Cloud Division Dan Hoffman said in a statement. "Instead of fighting the trends of mobility and bring your own device, we are empowering our clients to embrace them by extending our cloud phone system capabilities to the device that users love the most – their own."

Hoffman went on to say that the solution represents a "win-win," for customers as it allows them to turn devices they already own for personal use into office phones with nothing more than an application. It will also allow the enterprise to reduce costs and increase productivity, mainly by eliminating the learning curve due to a lack of new hardware..

Cincinnati IT consulting firms can help any law offices in Ohio setup and maintain a UC solution or ShoreTel technology while expanding the mobile office trend.

From our offices in Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, PRO OnCall is your single-source technology consulting service, offering managed IT support, unified communications solutions and on-call IT support.