Cape Town-based Tellumat Telecoms, the converged communications specialist, has been awarded the exclusive South African distribution rights of the IP communications range from US-based rising star ShoreTel.

Since inception in 1998, ShoreTel has taken the US market by storm and is now enjoying rapid global growth – out-pacing the mushrooming IP comms market and doubling in size every year. The company has won critical acclaim from respected research firm Frost & Sullivan, which puts its “explosive growth” down to a “clean-sheet approach”. (ShoreTel designed its pure IP systems from the ground up, evading the baggage of TDM technology whilst not compromising on carrier-class reliability and quality.)

Independent research by Nemertes further gives ShoreTel’s extensive IP range top honours in every one of four categories (features, customer service, value and ease of use), and places it first among a veritable ‘who’s who’ of telecoms vendors*.

Bennie Langenhoven, Managing Executive of Tellumat Telecoms, says two years ago they began looking for communications technology with the potential to disrupt the market – “something in the unified (IP-centric) communication space with a strong and unique value proposition and proven reliability. ShoreTel’s range was very attractive in all these respects, and organisationally the company is also very impressive. We believe the SA market will embrace ShoreTel too.”

Langenhoven notes the following attributes of ShoreTel’s technology as the most impressive:

• Unique distributed architecture allowing simple integration into many business applications, failover reliability, scalability and cost-effective manageability

• Independently audited customer satisfaction programme (bonuses at all levels of the organisation are mapped to a customer satisfaction index)

• Lowest cost of ownership for VOIP solutions and

• Ease-of-use

ShoreTel's VOIP system includes state-of-the-art switches, feature-rich software and ergonomically designed phones for enterprise-class functionality at a low total cost of ownership.

Mark Swendsen, ShoreTel MD in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, says the company delivers its solutions exclusively through a two-tier channel composed of in-country distributors and resellers. “ShoreTel has developed an innovative channel partner programme, and will be running a series of educational seminars, vendor showcases and regional exhibitions, to recruit a lean, forward-thinking channel of VARs.”

“We are delighted to be launching our presence officially in South Africa with this new distribution agreement with Tellumat,” he adds. “We have secured a major position in VOIP sales in the US and are very much looking forward to bringing the many benefits of our system, including reliability, scalability and ease of use, to organisations there.”

Langenhoven says, “Tellumat took its time to come up with a potential partner whose portfolio and organisational ethos would serve its own customers well in the long run. “We generally select a product range on the basis of tangible value – quality at a low total cost of ownership and a good return on investment. All these metrics are answered convincingly by ShoreTel.”