by Ray Horak, Technology Editor

ShoreTel Inc. (NASDAQ: SHOR) entered the IP telephony space in 1996 with the intent of designing a pure VoIP system from the ground up. The result was a unique distributed architecture that was well executed initially as an SMB solution and evolved to serve the even more demanding enterprise market. ShoreTel also has developed a position of leadership in the contact center. ShoreTel Contact Center 6 builds on strong foundations and the ShoreTel theme of brilliantly simple solutions.

ShoreTel Contact Center 6 introduces real time APIs and event feeds that “transform the call center into a dynamic contact center that feeds off the information to self adjust, react and reorganize to enhance the customer experience,” according to Kevin Gavin, ShoreTel Vice President of Marketing. “This helps call centers improve responsiveness and improve flexibility. Increased scalability and high availability features also provide a robust foundation and flexible geographic footprint for large call centers.”

ShoreTel Vice President of Marketing, Kevin Gavin comments on release.

Features introduced in Contact Center 6 include:

• A real-time event feed that generates group, queue and agent information through an open application programming interface (API) that eases the process of creating custom applications and integrating ShoreTel Contact Center 6 with existing business applications.
• ShoreTel Contact Center Agent Dashboard, a Web based application that enables supervisors to publish customized dashboards for agents. The dashboard provides call center managers with a consolidated view of their call center and can be deployed for use on iPads and mobile devices.
• ShoreTel Contact Center Interaction Viewer allows supervisors to get an end-to-end view of all interactions, including multimedia interactions. Complete call details, including information collected in the IVR from database dips, are available for organizations interested in creating deep analytics into their call center traffic.
• ShoreTel Communicator is a fully integrated unified desktop client for all users, whether they are call center agents or front desk operators, executives, managers or assistants. Users in a call center role can answer calls, chat, and email while receiving detailed interaction information on the unified client. ShoreTel Communicator eliminates the need for IT administrators to manage and train users on specialized clients for call centers.
• ShoreTel Contact Center 6 increases support for up to 1,000 concurrent agents and 2,000 total agents. Advanced redundancy features allow large call centers to effectively deploy agents in multiple sites while increasing reliability and uptime.
• Enhanced reporting and faster report generation.

ShoreTel has built a base exceeding 15,000 customers in 35 countries around the world, with over 1 million VoIP-enabled phones and end user licenses. ShoreTel end users can be found across all market sectors, including government, education, health care, retail, financial services and entertainment. ShoreTel maintains an extensive network of regional channel partners, and more recently added service providers including AT&T, Verizon and Qwest in North American, and Telstra in Australia. ShoreTel has entered into a global development, sales and marketing agreement with IBM to offer ShoreTel software integrated with the IBM Foundations solution for businesses. ShoreTel software and systems are designed in the USA with award winning support provided on-shore and in-country. For more visit shoretel.com.