Awakening the Giant
On June 8th, 2012 I posted an article, “Is ShoreTel the Next Nortel?” It was met with very positive comments from the public supporting Teledynamic’s negative opinion of Shoretel’s technology and future business prospects.
We posted a short follow up article, “Is Shoretel the Next Nortel – Part II” where I shared some of the comments I received and offered a few more opinions about the matter.
Both posts seemed to have ruffled some feathers over at Shoretel….
Shoretel Dealers to the Rescue
The first salvo came from Shoretel resellers, bashing me for sharing my opinions.
“…ShoreTel laughed at it and recalled the days when you were turned down as one of their resellers”Others pointed to Shoretel paid studies that showcased Shoretel as the next Messiah.
Shoretel Lawyers Get Into the Act
Next, it was the Shoretel lawyers turn.
Shortly after the post went public, TeleDynamic received a very threatening “cease and desist” email from their attorneys, citing improper use of the Shoretel logo in the offending blog post, callling it,
“…not reasonably necessary to identify ShoreTel or its products or services for the purposes of your blog.”Wow, sensitive much?
Data Doesn’t Lie
A quick review of TeleDynamic’s Google Analytics traffic report showed the top referrer for the last couple months was actually the Shoretel reseller’s website!
How did this happen?
Apparently Shoretel put their spinmeisters into overdrive with a rebuttal piece that they pushed out to their dealer network. The piece exhorted dealers to ignore all that “crazy talk” about Shoretel and that there was clearly no comparison to Nortel.
And they linked back to our blog post!
By the way Shoretel dealers, if the post did get you thinking about Shoretel’s long term viability, there’s still time to become a Digium reseller.
Shoretel Actually Recruited TeleDynamic
Ironically, last fall, Shoretel was heavily recruiting our firm to become a Shoretel reseller.
Two Channel Development Managers, Wade Bowling and Chris Sandell put the hard sell on Teledynamic. They plied me with several financial incentives to come over to the darkside.
I politefully declined, stating that I firmly believe that the future is in SIP and open architecture solutions.
Payback’s a Bitch
Shoretel actually started this whole dust up with a nasty hit piece bad-mouthing Digium this past spring. The article was sent out to several prospects and its innaccuracies got me a little riled up.
I set the record straight with a March 22 2012 post – Switchvox PBX Compared to Shoretel PBX.
Shoretel – Why Pick on the Little Guy?
TeleDynamic Communications is a relatively small business that supports business communications customers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Shoretel, on the other hand, is a public company with a market capitalization of $250 million.
So it’s odd to have Shoretel burn valuable marketing resources and pay exorbitant legal fees to go after some little guy who simply called it as he saw it.
Is TeleDynamic really that much of a threat to the Brilliantly Simple folks?
So long, and thanks for all the traffic.
