ShoreTelOne Conference - Quick Take
/Day 1 of ShoreTel's Global Partner Conference was quite good, and I'll be doing more writing about it over the next few days. We heard a lot about their vision for the cloud and platform-based solutions, and it's a familiar theme given the many conferences I've attended over the past few months. All the vendors are under the same pressures to adapt, and these changes really have become table stakes for staying in the game.
As with other vendors, this is a big shift from what ShoreTel has been really good at, and the big challenge lies in how well the channel community embraces these changes. I've been to several ShoreTel events, and a common thread has been a passion from the partners for working with ShoreTel. There's a lot of social capital and goodwill here, and that's a strong foundation to build on.
Over the rest of the conference, I'll have a better sense about how willing and able they'll be to follow ShoreTel's lead. There's certainly been an "adapt or die" theme here, but a lot of unknowns in terms of what end customers will ultimately end up deploying. Stay tuned. Until then, here are few pix from the event.
Held at the Gaylord in Orlando - very inviting walkup to the conference.
This is the core theme of the conference - interact with customers, with partners, with co-workers, team members, etc. That's definitely what ShoreTel Connect is built to do.
CEO Don Joos talking about the foundation they've built and how they're going to execute now.
CMO Mark Roberts talking about the importance of helping partners generate leads to drive new business.
Yes, we really are special.
Yup, it's a tough gig being an indie analyst, and to make ends meet, Dave Michels is moonlighting at the bar - works for me.
