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August 14, 2012

M5 is Bringing Mobility to Businesses as ShoreTel's Cloud Division

Right now, everything is status quo since ShoreTel acquired M5 for $146 million, according to Brent Barbara, VP of Client Solutions and Alliances for M5. The company is operating as an independent division after the acquisition closed in the first quarter. So what’s different for M5 as ShoreTel’s cloud division now?

“We benefitted from the mobility division,” said Barbara in an interview at SpeechTEK in Manhattan today. M5 needed a mobility partner, and the ShoreTel application was a perfect fit. The application allows for a unified communications within the business environment and across departments. Allowing desk phones to run on smartphones and allowing other speech features brings business opportunities into the mobile world.

Barbara said that he believes that the market is such now that those who want to make a decision about what kind of phone to use for a business have a choice. Enabling UC for businesses means coordinating voice networks in the office, and with workers in the field. BYOD is the way of the future for the enterprise. “Having my desk phone run as an app on my phone in my pocket is a game changer,” he said. “That is where true virtual work lies.”

At SpeechTEK, Barbara revealed that the conversations are about the benefits of cloud. Integration possibilities are where it’s at in this “cloud-to-cloud” world, he said. “All cloud-based applications make it very easy to integrate.” The modern view is on the convergence of mobility and cloud. BYOD is the trend, and the face of the workforce is changing. Businesses need to adapt to those changes.

Even talking about premise-based solutions and cloud-based ones is different now, noted Barbara. “Mobility is part of that – it bridges that gap. Mobility was originally sold as an add-on, now it’s more of a cloud-enabled app. We are taking the mobile apps and the data and bringing those records into CRM as well.”

M5 aims for a “20/20 view of the customer interaction” with upcoming announcements over the next few months involving Salesforce. We’ll be sure to be on the look-out for its developments in the enterprise mobility space.


To find out more about ShoreTel visit the company at ITEXPO West 2012. To be held Oct. 2-5 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, TX, ITEXPO is the world’s premier IP communications event. Peter Blackmore, Chief Executive Officer, and Pejman Roshan, Vice President, Product Development, ShoreTel will be keynote speakers at the event. M5 is also an exhibitor at the event. For more information on ITEXPO West 2012, click here.




Edited by Brooke Neuman


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