ShoreTel won the Best Overall VOIP Provider award based on earning the highest average rating (4.22 out of 5) across all categories. ShoreTel was tops in:

-- Technology -- covering underlying software, platforms, intelligence and standards compliance.

-- Product Features -- focusing on handset and switch capabilities. Customers like the architecture, built-in redundancy and ability to scale by stacking additional switches.

-- Customer Service -- focusing on response time, account service, RFP process, and warranty issues. Customers like that ShoreTel listens well to suggestions for upgrades and improvements.

-- Value -- focusing on "bang for the buck" -- customers feel they received value for their expenditure. Customers like that the capital, implementation and operational costs are lower than competitors and that ShoreTel includes its Personal Call Manager desktop client with every license.

-- Solution Experience -- focusing on the ability to understand business requirements and craft solutions that meet customer needs.

-- Ease of Installation and Troubleshooting.

-- UC Vision -- indicating the best plan and outlook for moving customers from VOIP to a full UC deployment.

-- ShoreTel was also one of the top three rated vendors for integration capabilities, which tracks how well products integrate with third-party products and applications.

"We're extremely pleased that Nemertes has provided an independent opportunity for our customers to express satisfaction with their ShoreTel UC systems," said Steve Timmerman, vice president of marketing, ShoreTel. "We understand the business and communications challenges our customers face, and we will continue to create the systems that meet their most exacting demands for high reliability, ease of deployment and use, and features that provide them with a competitive edge. We are especially proud that we have earned the top spot in Nemertes' evaluation for the fifth straight year."

The Nemertes report offered the following insights into ShoreTel and its customers.

Assessing Real Customer Experiences

"One key message from these findings is that biggest does not equate to best. Although Cisco, Avaya and Nortel have the largest market share, when evaluated across all industries and all sizes of companies, they do not score in the top three providers. This indicates market share among all sizes of companies may be more a function of marketing efforts rather than true customer experience. (It is important to note the top scores change when we segment the findings by industry and by segment size... )"

A True Plug-and-Play Implementation

"ShoreTel's ease of installation has been a hallmark of its customer satisfaction. In fact, one of ShoreTel's highest scores (4.56) is for ease of installation and troubleshooting. Year after year, ShoreTel customers praise the product line, describing it as "true plug-and-play" implementation. Many initially had no intention to use ShoreTel, but VARs were able to do quick sales demonstrations in which they established a VOIP system in a matter of a few hours -- and that impressed the prospective customers enough to buy the system. 'ShoreTel has very user-friendly, durable products,' says the telecom manager for a distribution company with 400 endpoints."

A Company That Listens

"ShoreTel customers of all sizes say the vendor is responsive to concerns or problems, and that it listens well to suggestions for upgrades and improvements. 'With ShoreTel, you don't get the run-around. They do what they say, when they say they will,' says the IT director for a non-profit agency with 200 endpoints."

System Value

"ShoreTel's customers also feel they get good value with ShoreTel's product line. The capital, implementation and operational costs are lower than most competitors."

The Nemertes Research press release is available at: http://www.nemertes.com/press_releases/nemertes_press_release_nemertes_disting uishes_top_voip_providers_pilothouse_awards.

About ShoreTel, Inc.

ShoreTel, Inc., [SHOR] is a leading provider of Pure IP Unified Communications solutions. ShoreTel enables companies of any size to seamlessly integrate all communications -- voice, video, messaging and data -- with their business processes. Independent of device or location, ShoreTel's distributed software architecture eliminates the traditional costs, complexity and reliability issues typically associated with other solutions. ShoreTel continues to deliver the highest levels of customer satisfaction, ease of use and manageability while driving down the overall total cost of ownership. ShoreTel is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and has regional offices in the United Kingdom, Sydney, Australia and Munich, Germany. For more information, visit http://www.shoretel.com or call 1-877-80SHORE.