ShoreTel earns world’s first Skype for SIP interoperability

SMBs and enterprises can now make voice calls via Skype with ShoreTel’s UC system; Skype users can contact ShoreTel-based businesses for free with global click-to-call button on corporate Web sites

LUXEMBOURG and SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Skype and ShoreTel, Inc. (NASDAQ: SHOR), the leading provider of brilliantly simple IP phone systems with fully integrated Unified Communications (UC), announced interoperability between ShoreTel’s UC system and the beta version of Skype for SIP. ShoreTel is the world’s first UC vendor to achieve interoperability with Skype for SIP. The nearly 11,000 ShoreTel enterprise customers can now register to try Skype for SIP in beta, giving them the opportunity to save money, save time and stay ahead by integrating Skype into their communications portfolios.

“By certifying ShoreTel’s UC system as interoperable with Skype for SIP, we have made it possible for ShoreTel’s business customers to reduce their costs even further, while also enhancing their own business experience through communications,” said Stefan Oberg, VP and General Manager of Skype for Business. “Skype for SIP is easy for businesses to configure and manage using Skype’s Web-based Business Control Panel (BCP), making it complementary to ShoreTel’s UC system, which is renowned for its simplicity.”

Skype for SIP allows ShoreTel’s business customers and their employees to receive inbound calls through their ShoreTel SIP-enabled UC system from more than 400 million registered Skype users around the world at no cost to the Skype user. In addition, organizations using ShoreTel can reduce their costs further by directing outbound calls from devices connected to the ShoreTel UC system via Skype for SIP to landlines and mobile devices worldwide at low Skype rates. Organizations that use ShoreTel with Skype for SIP may also purchase and associate online Skype numbers, currently available in more than 25 countries, with their ShoreTel UC system to receive inbound calls from landline and mobile phones.

“As part of our ongoing commitment to a standards-based open ecosystem that offers flexibility and choice, we are delivering a significant competitive advantage to ShoreTel customers with the ability to leverage Skype’s low-cost calling rates and to create an online presence with a click-to-call button that enables Skype users to call them for free,” said John W. Combs, president and CEO at ShoreTel. “The simple-to-configure capabilities of Skype for SIP will further improve the flexibility and efficiency of our customers’ operations, while lowering the total cost of ownership even further, and providing the boost in productivity they are used to seeing from ShoreTel’s UC systems.”

For more information on Skype for SIP and to sign up for the Skype for SIP beta, please visit www.skypeforsip.com.

For detailed information on ShoreTel products and features, please visit www.shoretel.com.

About ShoreTel, Inc.
ShoreTel, Inc., (NASDAQ: SHOR) is the provider of brilliantly simple Unified Communication (UC) solutions based on its award-winning IP business phone system. We offer organizations of all sizes integrated, voice, video, data, and mobile communications on an open, distributed IP architecture that helps significantly reduce the complexity and costs typically associated with other solutions. The feature-rich ShoreTel UC system offers the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) and the highest customer satisfaction in the industry, in part because it is easy to deploy, manage, scale and use. Increasingly, companies around the world are finding a competitive edge by replacing business-as-usual with new thinking, and choosing ShoreTel to handle their integrated business communication. ShoreTel is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has regional offices in Austin, Texas, United Kingdom, Sydney, Australia and Munich, Germany.

About Skype
Skype is software that enables the world’s conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Everyday, people everywhere also use Skype to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles. Download Skype to your computer or mobile phone at skype.com.

Skype is an eBay company (NASDAQ: EBAY).

Access to a broadband Internet connection is required. Skype is not a replacement for traditional telephone service and cannot be used for emergency calling. Skype for SIP is meant to complement existing traditional telephone services used with a corporate PBX, not as a stand-alone solution. Skype for SIP users need to ensure all calls to emergency services are terminated through traditional telephone services.

Skype, associated trademarks and logos and the “S” symbol are trademarks of Skype Limited.