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TeleSwitch's Plessett agreed with other VARs that ShoreTel needs to address a potential hybrid solution, what with so many customers interested in the cloud model but not always ready to commit to it fully.
"I'll be eager to see how they're promoting that at the conference," he said. "Hosted is going to be very strong, we think, and become more and more of a trend. I think we have to play in the space. But we also need more from ShoreTel because right now, the [premise] and the hosted business are still two separate organizations. How it works right now is that when we generate an opportunity, we call the Sky guys and they say, OK, let us help you qualify it. That's fine, but there's going to have to be more manpower and we just don't see them out at a national level just yet."
TeleSwitch's ShoreTel sales are up about 30 percent from 2011, and Plessett, like most partners, said that despite quibbles with ShoreTel's strategy, they've proven a good bet. Plessett will be speaking at the Champions conference about how to build a ShoreTel Mobility practice, he said -- one of many expansion opportunities TeleSwitch has successfully realized with its ShoreTel business.
"It's a strong business for us and we've won some significant projects," he said. "This has been one of the most frustrating sales cycles I've seen in recent years, but a large part of what we have won with ShoreTel has been that mobility piece. It's something we're bringing into almost every UC implementation."
