ShoreTel Inc. announced this week the availability of the ShoreTel Online TCO Tool to measure the total cost of ownership for unified communications systems.
This tool, which is accessible through ShoreTel's public Web site, analyzes TCO, including upfront acquisition costs management and support for ShoreTel, legacy TDM systems and various competing UC vendors. Once information is entered online, the TCO Tool provides detailed reports for alternative vendors, including TCO, post-tax cash flow, pay-back period, return on investment, internal rate of return and net present value.
It was developed by Alinean, a developer of research, methodologies and software tools to measure and quantify return on investment from business-to-business solutions, and is based on the TCO industry standards Alinean has established, which incorporate independent third-party research.
The ShoreTel TCO Tool combines upfront capital costs (including telephony system, network upgrade, hardware replacement and capitalized implementation charges); annual recurring operating expenses (including support services, moves, adds and changes, system management, electricity consumption, voice trunk, wide area network and long distance charges); and annual tax savings into a single TCO comparison.
"Many IP Telephony buyers continue to make new purchase decisions based predominantly on up-front costs; however, the recurring operating costs for IPT often exceed four times the acquisition cost over the life of the system," said Tom Pisello, chairman, Alinean Inc. “Research has shown that these operating costs correlate closely with the complexity of implementing, managing and supporting the underlying technology. Conversely, solutions that reduce complexity and simplify management result in lower TCO. The ShoreTel TCO Tool helps customers model this complexity and compare TCO categories, considering both near- and long-term costs across multiple UC solutions, and providing a vital tool for buyers to make well-informed value-based purchase decisions."
Results from the ShoreTel TCO Tool are supported by ShoreTel's Lowest TCO Guarantee program, so that if ShoreTel's TCO Tool and/or additional independent data determine our TCO is higher than a competing solution, ShoreTel will lower its price to beat the competition.
