ShoreTel gives partners room

IP telephony vendor ShoreTel has claimed it is committed to giving its partners more elbow room than its rivals and is determined to protect reseller margins with a selective recruitment policy.

ShoreTel’s EMEA managing director Mark Swendsen said his company has some 50 UK VARs. “That number will rise over time, but we need to give partners some elbow room. Panasonic and Cisco have over 1,000 and you can only add so many before it creates unsustainable conflict and impacts margins,” he said.

Swendsen also revealed he is unafraid of culling partners if necessary. “We are very good about cutting partners with low customer satisfaction or those that do not play nicely,” he said.

ShoreTel recently announced the expansion of its partnership with Black Box Network Services, which will now cover Australia and the UK.

Black Box UK managing director, Brendan Tobin, said: “ShoreTel is very supportive and the product set has high-level features.”