IP telephony provider Shoretel is hoping to increase its business in the education market, after closing two unified communications deals at Waikato schools through Hamilton reseller B2B Solutions.
Australia-based, Southeast Asia managing director Tony Warhurst says Shoretel has been strong in the US in the kindergarten to intermediate-equivalent market, and says there are many opportunities in education in Australia and New Zealand.
“Education and schools is something we seem to have fallen into, but we’re also strong in finance and legal,” says Warhurst, adding that Shoretel’s modular products suit a range of organisation sizes. “We don’t have a particular niche. We can go from four to 10,000 users on the same platform.”
B2B Solutions has deployed slightly differing configurations of Shoretel’s enterprise edition VoIP system at Te Totara Public School and Aberdeen Primary School, both in the Waikato.
Systems engineer Steve Webb says the education sector is one of his company’s focuses, although it has also implemented Shoretel systems in at least three other sites in different industries.
“We deal with quite a few schools locally and nationally, mostly with network support but also supplying servers.”
B2B is one of Shoretel’s nine local resellers, the most recent signing being Datacom in March.
Warhurst says it is campaigning to recruit resellers across the Tasman and wants to recruit more here. “We’re in a position to be selective. We’ve got a good bunch at the moment working with [local distributor] Connector Systems.”
