Over five years, ShoreTel has become a $100 million company with some deliriously happy customers.
Posted by Cisco Subnet editor Julie Bort. When ShoreTel won the contract to supply the San Francisco Giants with a VoIP system to replace an aging, expensive Centrex system, it was quite the coup. Not only is the Giant’s 10-year-old stadium named AT&T Park, but Cisco has been pounding down the doors of sports outfits nationwide to sell its fancy, but pricey, systems built specifically for stadiums. (Cisco won a contract from the Yankees for that club’s new stadium).
About a week ago, I spent a delightful evening at the gorgeous AT&T ballpark as a guest of ShoreTel. One of the perks of having the Giants as a customer is apparently access to a VIP suite for a media event.
I confess it worked. Not only was chairman and CEO John Combs such a friendly, “genuine” guy (in contrast to many a CEO I’ve met), but ShoreTel trotted out two more customers, all of whom were almost fanatical in their love of the company’s products. It made me stop and research the company. ShoreTel has grown up from a scrappy little $35.5 million-a-year IP telecom vendor to $100 million company over the past five years (with an IPO in 2007). Downside is that the company struggles to post a profit.
In addition to the Giants, the two happy customers included CNet (now CBS Interactive) and the San Francisco SPCA, a nonprofit veterinary hospital and pet care organization.
Julie Bort on the Giants field during warm up. Picture taken by ShoreTel CEO John Combs.
Joe Boothby, IT manager for the SPCA deployed about 200 ShoreTel phones in August, 2008. ShoreTel beat out Mitel, Avaya (its existing PBX vendor), Nortel, and Cisco. (Cisco dropped out, was a no-show when the SPCA requested a demonstration, Boothby says). Avaya was on the short list, but its IP PBX demo didn’t go well when the product didn’t work as expected, he said. So, the $150,000 contract was awarded to ShoreTel.
Nearly two years later and he says not a single ShoreTel phone is broken or has problems of any kind. Users love how customizable it is, too. Most of them have uploaded pictures of their pets on their phone’s screens.
Boothby’s dog Dexter on his ShoreTel phone.
Boothby absolutely raves about the gear. “You know that feeling when you are in the market for something and you aren’t sure if you should settle or if there’s something better around the corner? If you don’t look at ShoreTel, you’ll be missing out,” he says.
The San Francisco Giants’ CIO, Bill Schlough is, obviously, also a ShoreTel fan. The story he tells is that in November, 2007, his then boss, SF Giants owner Peter McGowan saw a report that named the 30 teams that spent the most on communications. The San Francisco Giants topped the list. So he set off on a project to reduce their telecom expenses by replacing an ancient Centrex system with VoIP. While Schlough won’t say where on the list the SF Giants now fall, he did say that the ShoreTel system saves him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Savings have come from the lots of areas including the reduced footprint of the gear. Rather than an entire wall, the ShoreTel system requires 1/3 of a rack.
Giant’s horrid old Centrex system covers a whole wall.
Bill Schlough stands before the Giant’s “lovely” new ShoreTel VoIP on 1/3 of a rack.
The VoIP system has been integrated with the Giant’s CRM system, too. When a season ticket holder calls, that conversation is tracked with other CRM data such as which games the person attended. The VoIP admin person needed no certification or special telecom experience or training, Schlough says. And he adds, “Sound quality is excellent. With Centrex we thought sound quality is great. With the ShoreTel system it sounds as if the person is in the same room.”
ShoreTel beat out Nortel, Avaya and Cisco for the contract. It didn’t hurt that ShoreTel’s corporate color is the same orange as the Giants, he quips. But that wasn’t the deciding factor. For instance, Cisco might have had a leg up. The club is already big Cisco customer. The stadium is a giant (excuse the pun) WiFi hotspot, thanks to the 266 Cisco WiFi APs installed throughout, including a dedicated AP for every suite. “Our fans are our power users,” says Schlough. The network is served by Cisco and Nortel routers, switches, too.
But ShoreTel was priced right for the goal of reducing communications expenses. With that goal achieved, Schlough says he’s got one main thing left to do — anything else he can think of to help the Giants win the World Series. That’s a feat that hasn’t happened in 55 years. But if VoIP can help them, then I say, power to the VoIP.
