ShoreTel Inc., a provider of unified communications solutions on an open, distributed IP architecture, announced that in a recent Aberdeen Group study for the total cost of ownership (TCO) of unified communications solutions, its unified communication solution was found to have the lowest cost of ownership and was the easiest to deploy, use and manage as compared to other solutions available to customers in the market.

More specifically, thanks to least cost routing capabilities, which avoid long-distance charges, ShoreTel (News - Alert) users can achieve massive savings.

The total cost of ownership is used for assessing the costs, benefits and associated risks of a UC solution that make it possible for organizations to analyze solutions from their competitors. The UC solution from ShoreTel has been based on IP technology that helps it to conform with business requirements much better than other legacy "IP-enabled" complex technology solutions.

The ShoreTel solution leverages an open distributed architecture that enables easy integration with currently used business applications and processes. To scale up, organizations are simply required to plug in an additional switch without the need for a complete overhaul of infrastructure. Any additions or changes can be carried out with ease as the solution enables management of users as opposed to devices, which effectively brings down cost of system administration and associated complexities. It is because of these differences that ShoreTel was judged to have the lowest cost of ownership for its solution across the industry.

The Aberdeen (News - Alert) study highlights ease in use of the ShoreTel UC solution and its TCO advantage based on certain observations. The study found that the ShoreTel UC solution was the easiest to deploy as customers reported savings of up to 67 percent over internal implementation cost per phone. On the matter of training and certification, it was found that up-front costs for training an administrator for the ShoreTel systems could be achieved at a third of the cost of training a Cisco UCM solution-based administrator. Also the annual training costs were found to be 85 percent lower than Avaya IP Office while training for other telephone was 73 percent less on an average.

The study also found that the ShoreTel solution can be completed in a third of the time as compared to changes over other systems such as over the MACs on a Microsoft (News - Alert) OCS/Lync system. The ShoreTel UC solution also scored high when it came to cost-effective management with a lowered cost of up to 42 percent when compared to Avaya Aura Communications Manager and was 77 percent lower than what it takes to manage the Cisco Unified Communications (News - Alert) Manager.

Enterprise customers need to consider upfront capital costs as well as cost for both infrastructure and training of their Unified Communications solutions. Customers also consider network upgrades, system deployment, as well as maintenance contracts among other factors. The Aberdeen study defined the total cost of ownership of a unified communications solution based on maintenance and software assurance; complete understanding of the labor costs involved in management of UC and depreciation in the operational costs over a period of five to six years.

For more information on ShoreTel, please visit www.shoretel.com