ShoreTel has recruited 21 UK reseller partners to sell its new Connect Cloud and Connect Contact Centre platforms within eight weeks of launch.
Speaking at the company's partner forum held at the Shard in London, UK Regional Vice President Adrian Hipkiss told delegates that resellers have already sold Connect solutions from three users up to 500 and underlined the power of the video capabilities they bring.
"After just eight weeks we know customers like it and will make fast decisions," he said. "And we have learnt that video calling is a game changer. Reducing travel is powerful."
Within the Connect Cloud environment users will now be able to collaborate on desktop and a range of mobile platforms via HD multi-party video initiated in a web browser using WebRTC.
"This is all integrated and included for free, which is disruptive when people are paying for services like Go to Meeting," added Hipkiss.
Hipkiss also stressed the growing value to the channel of open APIs available on ShoreTel's new Mobility Client which will enable resellers to offer applications such as translation services for larger clients.
"Creating propriety applications will keep customers sticky, but they want open applications," he said. "We are delivering to the workplace the expectations users get from the application players like Amazon are providing at home."
As an example, he said, the ShoreTel Teamwork app will enable people to work collaboratively on projects tightly integrated with other ShoreTel applications.
"The ability to share files is built into the application," explained Hipkiss. "People can see who has the ball, they can allocate tasks, manage personal tasks and share dashboards."
Alongside this, ShoreTel has introduced a new Digital Assistant which combines Connect Cloud with the Summit Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS), VoiceBase and Teamwork apps.
"This will, for instance, enable users to record a conference call, translate the speech to text and deliver the transcript to everyone in a group," added Hipkiss.