ShoreTel Expands Mobile UC Offering With Agito Buy

ShoreTel is expanding its unified communications (UC) capabilities by buying Agito Networks. The merger will result in the creation of a product that lets users communicate anywhere, from any device, and on any network.

The company, which announced it is buying Agito for $11.4 million, said the deal will also enable the company to reduce customers’ mobile and long-distance call costs and let business people use their smartphones as PBX phones.

Purchase Will Drive Costs Down

ShoreTel already offers UC capabilities with its line of IP business phones, including voice, video data and mobile communications. Officials said the company’s open and distributed IP architecture will help drive the cost of its offerings below those of competitors such as Cisco Systems and Avaya.

Agito’s products will expand the ShoreTel offering in the mobile space, where Agito was helping businesses to extend their UC capabilities and voice onto smartphones. The RoamAnywhere Mobility Router was designed to create a fixed mobile convergence platform that brings together WLANs, carrier cell networks, IP telephony and location technologies, enabling customers to use their mobile phones as they would their desktop devices.

Using mobile phones as PBX extensions is becoming increasingly important as more workers become mobile and use cell phones as their primary handsets, according to ShoreTel.

ShoreTel will now be able to offer native support for smartphones and tablet PCs, such as Research In Motion’s BlackBerrys and PlayPads, Apple’s iPhone and iPad, Nokia devices, and handsets that run Windows Mobile. Such support should lessen the integration issues that arise for businesses as more employees move to their own choice of personal devices.

“This is a key strategic investment that creates a significant differentiator for ShoreTel in enterprise mobility,” interim ShoreTel CEO Don Girskis said in a statement. “Dependence on smartphones continues to skyrocket but many workers still struggle with poor coverage areas, inferior call quality, expensive international roaming fees and limited feature sets.”

Integrating Agito’s technologies with ShoreTel’s UC system will “free users to use any network (WiFi or cellular), leveraging the power of the desk phone, and taking advantage of industry-leading call quality and call controls from their smartphone,” Girskis said. “This not only has a positive impact on productivity, but it also positively affects the bottom line with significant savings on mobile and international usage fees.”

Businesses, the company said, will see improved employee production, reduced communications costs – Agito’s technology saved some companies up to 80 percent on their mobile and international calls, according to ShoreTel – heterogeneous PBX support that now includes mobility in ShoreTel’s Legacy Migration Programme, and greater security.

Through the deal, ShoreTel will get all of Agito’s IP and distribution network, and it will hire some Agito employees. ShoreTel also will get greater access to Fortune 1000 customers, according to company officials.