One Part of ShoreTel Sky’s Unified Communications Suite is generating a lot of buzz, and it’s the ShoreTel Sky Communicator. The best way I can think of to describe the Sky Communicator is to say, it’s an instant messenger client that means business.

The most recognizable aspect of the ShoreTel Sky Communicator is Instant Message (IM). It looks similar to the IM clients you know and love, like AIM/AOL, Skype, and Yahoo. But, unlike those popular home clients, this one puts all those tools to work. You get a first and last name, no clever nicknames involving one’s college hobby or favorite band. ShoreTel Sky Communicator has presence, AKA an away message or status. But because ShoreTel Sky is hooked into your phone and other ShoreTel UCC tools, it’ll also display information about whether you’re in a meeting, who you are on the phone with, and other important information. Once a co-worker has your presence information, they can decide how best to handle communicating with you, including sending a message directly to your voicemail. Sync your contacts with a few mouse clicks, and you can import all your Microsoft Outlook contacts into the Communicator.

When you want to communicate with your coworkers, click once and you’ll be chatting, talking, or making a video call with your co-workers. You get a number of ways to facilitate collaboration, including file sharing and desktop sharing. You get your choice of standard, full screen, and compact views.

With ShoreTel Sky Communicator, you can video chat and voice chat, just like Skype. Again, you’re in an office setting, so you’ll get the professional treatment. You have your choice of several levels of access: Personal access, which comes standard with the ShoreTel UC suite, offers a rich feature set; professional access level has IM, softphone, customizable call rules, and high quality video; Workgroup Agent Access and Workgroup Supervisor Access levels are designed for call centers.

The ShoreTel Communicator is one of the gold standards when it comes to Unified Communications and Collaboration. This is a powerful tool that will add productivity, save time, and ultimately add to many SMB’s bottom line.

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