Go Systems ditches Cisco for Shoretel

Go Systems, a provider of unified communications services, has signed three customers twelve weeks after being confirmed as a Shoretel partner.

According to Robert Ek, director, Go Systems, the company had a long history with Cisco but had to drop the communications giant because of its confusing product roadmap.

“Their product changes on the SMB side of things too numerous to keep up with,” he said. “There were five product changes in six years, which was ridiculous. What we found is we were just getting certified with one product, and they would introduce another, which left our heads spinning.”

Ek also said Cisco’s decision to end local support was an additional factor in the company’s decision to jump ship to Shoretel.

“We were looking for a stronger product line, expandable from 100 to 1000 seats, and we consulted with our partners, including Telstra, and the Shoretel name was one that kept coming up.

“We realised they had an excellent solution, and so we got on board,” he added.

A Cisco representative said the company had not ended its local support for any product in its current portfolio. 

"We have evolved our solutions as we move towards Hosted Collaboration and introduced the Business Edition 6000 to address the 25 to 1,000 user segment. The BE 6000 coincidentally is our fastest growing product line," the Cisco representative said.

"Cisco is very committed to the SMB segment and have introduced specific certification, marketing programs and initiatives to support our channel partners that address this segment and we are seeing sustained uptake and growth  in this area. This approach delivers the same advanced features and market leading innovation including customisation across the portfolio to ensure the best outcomes and productivity for our partners and customers. When combined with partners who provide network infrastructure services, this creates a more simple model to the market.

Customer wins

The three Go Systems customer wins include Cunninghams Real Estate, one of Sydney’s largest property managers, as well as Lockley Land Titles, a leading property surveying company. Along with those two, a third win occurred recently with Ethos Recruiting, which has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore.

“In a matter of weeks, it was ‘all-systems-go’ for our sales and technical teams to start winning business across all sectors and all business sizes,” added Ek. “We were easily able to articulate the value of the ShoreTel solution to Cunninghams Property who chose the ShoreTel UC platform based on the ease-of-integration with its existing third party applications including Outlook and Agent Box.

Lockley Land Titles selected the ShoreTel SBE bundle as a complete, out-of-the-box unified communications solution giving them enterprise-class functionality at a price-tag that meets their requirements today. Both new implementations took place at the end of June.”

Ek continued, “The on-boarding process with ShoreTel was a breeze and included a combination of personalised demonstration sessions with the ShoreTel Partner Development Specialist plus instructor lead and self-paced, web-based training. We have a dedicated ShoreTel Area Sales Manager to continue to support us day-to-day but the goal is to become self-sufficient utilising our industry expertise to continue to win and maintain business.”