ShoreTel (News - Alert), Inc., a provider of PureIP Unified Communications solutions, and Syntellect Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Enghouse Systems Limited and a provider of enterprise-class contact center solutions, has announced that the companies have signed a strategic distribution agreement.

The agreement provides that ShoreTel will offer Syntellect’s (News - Alert) contact center solution in conjunction with its Pure IP Unified Communications (News - Alert) system to ShoreTel resellers globally. This announcement is being positioned as illustrating ShoreTel’s commitment to the high-end contact center market, as well as its ability to scale to meet the needs of a growing list of enterprise customers.

“We have accelerated our sales with our current contact center portfolio, which we will continue to enhance,” said Steve Timmerman, vice president of marketing at ShoreTel, in a Monday statement. “As we have grown our position within the large enterprise market, we have experienced demand for more advanced contact center applications. With Syntellect’s Customer Interaction Management solution and ShoreTel’s Pure IP Unified Communications system, we are able to offer these customers a large, distributed communications solution with the most sophisticated contact center capabilities.”

With the deployment of the Syntellect contact center solution with ShoreTel’s Unified Communications system, customers are able to scale to thousands of agents, locate their agents anywhere in the network, and develop speech-enabled, self-service solutions.

The integrated solution is designed to deliver fully featured, multi-channel interaction management and includes support for voice, e-mail, Web chat, fax and tasks in an IP contact center solution that scales to meet the needs of the large distributed enterprise.

“With ShoreTel’s products in our portfolio, Syntellect has expanded the solution capabilities it can offer its customers, and can now provide more of the total communications solution that customers are seeking,” said Steve Dodenhoff, president of Syntellect, in Monday’s statement. “What started as an informal relationship with field-based opportunities has expanded to this formal relationship that allows both companies to leverage the power of the combined solution. We are extremely excited about the opportunities for both companies and have been very impressed with the ShoreTel team.”

ShoreTel and Syntellect have done well to strategically align their two companies in order to deliver a solution that meets the immediate needs of the innovative contact center.

Contact centers are increasingly becoming dispersed, making it essential to implement solutions that cater to the dispersed agent. These centers also require full integration, location and interaction management capabilities for these agents, in addition to the self-service channels that customers are demanding. By supplying a solution that meets all of these needs, ShoreTel and Syntellect are ensuring increased demands and expanded market reach.