Welcome to Ask the Experts, brought to you by CloudServicesUniversity.com. In this video, Intelisys’ SVP Cloud Transformation Andrew Pryfogle talks about how UCaaS and mobility are improving productivity with ShoreTel’s Senior Director of Product Management Richard Winslow. Find out more about UCaaS, cloud and VoIP solutions from Richard and the ShoreTel team here: http://shoretel.cloudservicesuniversity.com/
| Andrew: | Time for yet another Ask the Experts session. I’m here with Richard Winslow, who’s the Senior Director of Product Management with ShoreTel. Richard, welcome man. |
| Richard: | Thank you, Andrew. |
| Andrew: | Good to see you. Hey, I know that this is a big hot button for you guys at ShoreTel and that is mobility. We’ve been talking a lot in this track about mobility–the explosion of mobile users out there in the work force–and how so many of us are now mobile workers. Talk about UCaaS and mobility for a moment. I’d love to get your insight on what ShoreTel strategy is to meet that burgeoning demand? |
| Richard: | Our strategy is definitely mobile first. We have been heavily invested there, and that’s because the consumer, or the customers, obviously value mobility. It’s in their pocket. That mobile device goes with them anywhere. By putting an enterprise class application on there that you get to take with you, it can make you more productive. |
| Many examples: in the airports, on the road, at home tele-working–and I always have that client. A few different things: one is sometimes you might have limited cell phone access but you have WiFi. Our client can hop on that WiFi network and give you outstanding voice quality. Other ideas will be like doing collaboration from your mobile device. Imagine being in an airport, open up your iPad, you join an audio conference, and you grab access from a Dropbox folder and start sharing a PowerPoint presentation without even bringing up, opening a PC. Being able to be on the go and have all your UC capabilities with you is absolutely our focus. | |
| Andrew: | Love that. It’s being available where you’re working, wherever you happen to be working at that moment. Right? |
| Richard: | Yeah. A great example of that is we have a feature we call the “Today Feature” on our mobile client. What it is, it actually reads your calendar and figures out when you have meetings and presents you with a big green button that says, “Join.” You can be driving down the freeway at 65 miles an hour and hit this join button, and you’re automatically on that audio bridge. |
| Drive through a tunnel and the call drops, no problem. Hit that green button again, you’re right back in. It’s the safety feature, it’s a simplicity feature–and for me being dyslexic, I can’t even remember those long access codes, anyways. | |
| Andrew: | But that takes all the fun out of conference calls while I’m on the road! Having to dial, remember that 10-digit number, and the eight-digit number after that, and the pound, and the star, and the one, and the this, and the that. That’s actually really cool. So it’s a button on the app on the device itself. You hit the button and it joins automatically for you. |
| Richard: | Yep. From your Android, iPhone, iPad. |
| Andrew: | Forgive me, but that’s bad ass, my friend. |
| Richard: | It is. |
| Andrew: | Love that. Very cool. Hey, are you guys doing anything . . . When will I be able to get my ShoreTel calls on my Apple watch? |
| Richard: | Already? Yeah, thanks for bringing it up. ShoreTel introduced our Apple watch integration. We were actually approached by Apple, being leaders in enterprise mobility. They asked us to join with them as part of the launch to introduce an enterprise class app. You actually get notifications of your calls on your watch, you can answer, divert calls, not take it, get notifications, join meetings–all from your Apple watch. Tell your boss you need to go buy an Apple watch and a ShoreTel account. |
| Andrew: | Yeah. No kidding. I probably should have asked that before I bought my own. Hey, that’s cool man. Hey, great stuff Richard. Thanks so much, man. We’re super excited about the mobility kind of explosion, and I love that mobility-first vision of ShoreTel. Good job, man. Thanks. |
| Richard: | All right. Thank you, Andrew. |
| Andrew: | All right. Guys, that’s Richard Winslow. He’s the Senior Product Manager at ShoreTel. Great to have him onboard as part of the faculty here at the University. Do make sure you spend some time at the learning center for ShoreTel. This is some great, great stuff here guys that will help you grow your cloud business faster. Good selling. |
