MiCloud Connect (formerly ShoreTel) Reviews

Mitel has a great phone service product. The user interface for phone service, and the admin portal is extremely easy to use. Ultimately, it was presented that the conferencing solutions in a unified communication plan were more capable then reality. In comparison to other phone systems, Mitel is definitely a step ahead of the pack in both functionality and professional user interface. However, in context of conferencing solutions, Mitel is a several steps behind the pack.

We've recently did a full comparison of the top 6 to 8 VoIP companies including on-site testing as well. For the cost to switch over - losing the investment we have - we feel that ShoreTel can provide us the same, if not better, benefit that the other competition can,

Easy to set up, configure and use.

This is the first program of its type that we have used at this company but I would highly suggest it as it is the backbone of our call center. The way it manages calls and emails is paramount to our success.

Cost and ease of management are primary benefits over Cisco UCS. Much easier to train up admin staff in creating a new site and deploying gear for MiCloud vs Cisco. Reporting is also simple to run and schedule, enhanced by Brightmetrics.

Cisco Call Manager.

Much more user friendly/intuitive, better software experience and does not have the multitude of hardware failures that we experienced under Avaya's product.

We looked at some cloud based hosted systems, but in the end, these would cost more over time than an on premise system.

ShoreTel was one of the earlier VOIP solutions available. They established themselves as a leader early on but lack a lot of innovation that newer VOIP companies bring to the market. Everything comes at a cost, want a conference bridge, you're going to need a license. Want Video Conferencing, going to need a license. Want instant message features, going to need a license. Want the ShoreTel Mobile app, going to need a license. A lot of competitors have these as base features. If there's a licensing issue you have 60 days to resolve the issue or the entire ShoreTel server will lock, once its locked you have to pay a fee and then correct the licensing issue. At the end of the day its a VOIP solution that is well established and the system just works.

When evaluating phone systems, we looked at Cisco VoIP in addition to ShoreTel. Cisco was more money, had a higher learning curve, and we received a bad review from a local business who was using it. In the ShoreTel demo, the engineer brought their equipment and set up a demo in our conference room. He was able to get a phone system up and running in a matter of minutes. The biggest selling point was when he turned the phone server off and the phone system continued to work, minus the voicemail and Communicator software.

We looked at packet8 and decided they would be more of a headach to implement. Although, I do think their monthly service is cheaper, I guess you get what you pay for. There is very little comparesion between shortel sky and the alaoge box we had before. I think we paid 10K for the old system and had 4-5 phone lines, it was not nearly enough.

Ease of installation and administration. Cost and flexibility. Single points of failure and redundancy.

Polycom phones work fine, but they are a bit hard to learn how to use. There are a lot of "open" buttons that seem rather nebulous. ShoreTel's GUI interface really makes learning how to use the platform easy, even for a child to use. Plus ShoreTel designs and builds all of its hardware, and Polycom just makes phones and uses other technologies on the back end to run the system.

We have also used allworx and when it worked it worked great, however there were a few times where the system would be down for a few days because of clock issues within an update.

Mitel and Toshiba for on-premises telephony. RingCentral and 8x8 for hosted. All of them have their strengths and weaknesses. For on-premises, there is no better solution than ShoreTel in my opinion. There are elements of the other hosted product I do appreciate like integration capabilities and reduced price per seat with comparable features. We have developed a great guide for those that are interested in looking at the differences between ShoreTel, RingCentral, and 8x8:

http://www.mtrx.com/blogs/shoretel_8x8_ringcentral_cloud_phone_comparison

Similar overall goals, but ShoreTel is easier to use from both a user standpoint as well as administrative standpoint. ShoreTel easily can be supported internally whereas Mitel would require more pro services

Shoretel is not what they used to be. They are now a fee based organization with poor customer service and tons of corporate red tape. We are locked into a contract and look forward to switching to a different company when that expires

The system was great compared to other systems I've used. Easy to learn. Easy to use. Easy to implement. Easy to use on the go. Easy to make heavy call volume.

We implemented Shoretel in early 2008 (currently 6 years ago). At the time we did an extensive RFP which included proposals from Cisco, Mitel and others. We looked at costs, features and management and ShoreTel was a winner across the board for our environment and needs.

We also evaluated Cisco VOIP and Avaya. Avaya wasn't as advanced and Cisco seemed similar. We watched 3 presentations and staff collectively voted for ShoreTel.

One thing I like about ShoreTel is that each upgrade is compatible with hardware used in previous versions. And Shoretel is still using Microsoft servers.

TDS Telecomm - ShoreTel Sky seemed more reliable and cheaper; definitely fit our budget well.

ShoreTel Sky scores big on customer services and compared to the competition (XO, Avaya, etc...) they are very accessible which is huge, especially in regards to getting problems fixed. Cost wise they are very, very competitive and they beat everyone else's prices we looked at. I can't say the reliability is there for a call center environment, but they are getting better. They take suggestions for their apps and software. Overall I am pleased with them, they are a young services with plenty of growing to do, but I would recommend them to most.

ShoreTel is a much better solution than Cisco. They are not only more cost effective, but they are not as overly complex as the Cisco solution. ShoreTel is easier to implement and administer.

Shoretel was in the VOIP business from the beginning. They have mature development processes and their software is stable. They did not just lump products from other acquisitions and slap a new brand on their product. I have used open source systems (Asterisk) to 3COM VCX platform with their integrated network switching platform. The difference is, Shoretel has had the end to end software and monitoring visibility to ensure the product is working efficiently. From using the Shoreware Director to view network statistics to the ECC Monitoring of agent calls and activity. The Reporting uses Crystal Reports and was an easy transition for our teams who already had this skillset. Testing was a huge sucess over the other products. The ability to test the trunk you are working in the Test Trunk Tool. Not having to be physically in the location to test the PRI's when needed. Other systems have this too, but they are not as easy to use in my opinion. Lastly the licensing model is straight forward and not expensive. They are competitive with the market.