In September 2017, premise-based product Mitel acquired ShoreTel to gain a stronger presence in the hosted system market and to obtain a large existing customer base of premise-based systems. This acquisition made Mitel the # 2 market-share player in the global UCaaS market, with an abundant supply of premise-based phone system customers that could transition to hosted services.
Four years later, in November of 2021, Mitel entered into a strategic partnership with hosted solution provider leader RingCentral. The arrangement was very unconventional:
“Mitel shocked many in the industry when it announced its UCaaS tie-up with RingCentral at the end of last year. The deal will see Mitel nudge partners wanting a public cloud-based system towards RingCentral’s offering rather than Mitel’s own, signaling Mitel’s early exit from a technology that the market widely expects to dominate the communications landscape. The Mitel partnership is different because Mitel is not reselling RingCentral technology; it is handing the customer over to RingCentral.”
Mitel’s website boasts:
“RingCentral is now Mitel’s exclusive UCaaS partner, providing Mitel customers with a future- forward cloud communications platform with generous functionality, high reliability, and a full force of advanced integrations.”
What does the future look like?
Mitel will forgive any remaining term-length contractual obligations on Mitel-hosted services and provide pricing incentives for a start-up period. Following this consolidation of all hosted customer bases, RingCentral will concentrate efforts to transition the older Mitel/Shoretel premise equipment to the RingCentral hosted platform.
Mitel has already announced to both Mitel and RingCentral partners that the MiVoice Connect product will be phased out by the end of the decade. Other phase-outs are as follows (some exact dates TBD):
Q4 2023: The end of sale for all new Mitel systems. Q4 2024/ Q1 2025: The end of add-on sales.
December 31, 2029: The end of Mitel’s technical support.
So what does this mean for your business?
You need a plan to migrate off the Mitel MiVoice Connect system.
Modern Telecom will help you evaluate your needs, create a migration plan that is best for your organization, and help you execute that plan.
Mitel has already engaged a migration program exclusive to Mitel Customers that includes:
- 20% discount on RingCentral’s MVP cloud service
- Promotional free months
- Migration path programs and services (including number porting)
- The reuse of (specific) existing Mitel and Shoretel premise phone models
- Free phones
Let Modern Telecom bRING you onto RingCentral’s award-winning platform
Modern Telecom can guide you through RingCentral’s features- including RingCentral’s MVP cloud service. We are ramping up our staff for this migration to continue providing the best local, reliably awesome support you have come to expect from us here at Modern Telecom.
