Connections
Be Connected, Stay Connected  
Spring 2014 
Letter From the President
Greetings!

Welcome to Mitel User Group Connections. We are off to a strong start in 2014, fueled by explosive growth over the past 12 months. Last year at this time we had about 150 user group members with a plan to attract new users. Since then we've increased our ranks by nearly seven-fold and now exceed 1,000 members.

 

And we continue to grow. In fact, we have an exciting year ahead. Our upcoming Annual General Meeting will be held June 2-5th in Atlanta and looks to be an information-packed event, as always. 

 

We are looking to build out Special Interest Groups (SIGs) around key user interests and will have a great schedule of webinars and trainings planned. And we will provide users with updates and information on new products, including those from the prairieFyre, Aastra and Oaisys.

 

The board is working to make the User Group an even more immersive and constructive resource for our members. We are highly interested in your feedback and suggestions. What would you like to see the User Group focus on going forward? In fact, this is our top agenda item for our next board meeting. Give us your thoughts at [email protected].   

 

  Jason Spainhour

 

  All the Best,

 

  Jason Spainhour
  President, Mitel User Group

  

From Mitel

The New Mitel and Why This  

is Good for our Customers

 

Mitel have made 4 acquisitions in the past year. Most notable was our merger with Aastra, completed in January to form a US$1.1 billion business communications company and greatly expand our portfolio and presence. Last June we acquired long-term partner prairieFyre to strengthen our contact center offering and just this month we acquired OAISYS, to further build on our customer experience capabilities. This has created a much larger Mitel with a broader global reach. Integrated within the Aastra merger was their recent acquisition or Telepo who provide us a great Cloud play with carriers in EMEA.

 

What has driven this series of deals, you might be asking?. We've been seeing a strong trend toward industry consolidation coming and Mitel has been planning accordingly. In a market undergoing substantial M&A activity, it is better to be a consolidator than to be acquired. This is a conscious decision by Mitel to take advantage of the consolidation trend to grow in scope, scale and industry influence. We intend to be a leader in this market, not a follower.

 

This of course is good for Mitel as a company and our shareholders, but as User Group members you must be wondering how this affects our core audience - our customers? In fact, our sharp focus on our customers is driving Mitel's direction to grow and acquire capabilities that our customers demand. Central to that is providing the broadest portfolio for our customers with solutions that help you to succeed.

 

The Aastra product lines greatly deepen our offering and expand customer choice. This means more options in business phones; collaboration and conferencing and contact center solutions for our customers. Plus Mitel offers the best path to the cloud -- private, public or hybrid. This remains a core focus and you'll continue to see solutions that help organizations migrate to the cloud and optimize their solutions.


The prairieFyre and OAISYS acquisitions have brought a strong and compelling contact center solution. And we'll continue to focus on what is best for our 

customers with an aim to deliver the most options with the best path to the cloud and solutions that will help to make you even more successful.
 

   

 

Martyn Etherington, CMO

 

From Within

 

We recently caught up with board member Judy Abbott from CenterLine (Windsor) Ltd. for her thoughts on the Mitel User Group.

 

 

What prompted you to join the Mitel User Group? 

 

Judy: We had just replaced our old Nortel system with Mitel's SX200 and our VAR at the time had recommended the User Group and signed us up. I have attended the annual meetings ever since.

What has been the greatest benefit of the User Group to you? And what has been the most surprising benefit?

Judy: The greatest benefit is having access to such a vast amount of knowledge. Not just from the direct access we get to Mitel executives,employees,  and training sessions during the AGM and at BPC, but also from my fellow user group members. The User Group is such a diverse group of people, from 'non-technical' to 'super-techs,' the wealth of knowledge is tremendous amongst our users. I always come away learning something new from other members.

 

What are you looking forward to from the User Group in 2014?

 

Judy:In 2014, with such explosive growth of the group, I am looking forward to meeting many of the new members as well as catching up with the old ones at this years AGM.

 

As a new member to the Board of Directors, I'm excited to work  with the other board members along with Mitel to bring more benefits to the user group community.

 

MUG AGM 2014

SAVE THE DATE!

 

June 2 - 5, 2014

 

Mitel User Group Annual General Meeting

Westin Atlanta Perimeter North Hotel
Atlanta, Georgia

Registration details coming soon.


In This Issue
Our 1,000th Member!
Mitel User Group has surpassed the 1,000-member mark! Congratulations to Darren Kirkland from US Engineering Company, who was the thousandth to join. Darren has won a conference pass to attend this year's Mitel User Group AGM
Technology Upgrade Needed! 



SIG Webinars

 

We are working on some very exciting SIG webinars over the next few months.

Upcoming topics include:

-MiVoice Conference Unit

-MiCloud

Stay tuned  and watch your in-box for the latest webinar.

 

Socialize

Get involved and socialize Mitel User Group. Give us your unique and interesting take on our issues.  Winner of the Post of the Season will receive a Mitel User Group golf shirt and a shout out in the next newsletter.

 

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get tweeting @mitelusergroup

 

'Like' us and start posting on Facebook or type "Mitel User Group" in the Facebook search box

 

Follow us on LinkedIn  

 

Mitel in the News

Mitel University is launching a new Learning Management System. It's an easy to use new system that uses enrolment keys to simplify end-user training.

 

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 Mitel has completed its merger with Aastra, announced back in November 2013. This expands the Mitel portfolio, geographic reach and creates a US$1.1 billion company with more than 60 million end users worldwide.  

 

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Mitel acquired long-term partner OAISYS to further build out the contact center capabilities.

 

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BPC 2014 has been postponed until early 2015. With the recent merger with Aastra, Mitel changed to a calendar-based fiscal year.  BPC (traditionally held in first financial quarter) has been rescheduled to align with the new fiscal year. 

 

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CRN: Mitel becomes $1bn giant following Aastra buy 

 

Ottawa Citizen: Mitel completes acquisition of Aastra Technologies 

  

CRM: Mitel Releases MiContact Center 7.0 

 

TelecomPaper: Sasktel Selects Mitel MiVoice for Business Communications 

   

UC Strategies: Mitels MiVoice Office Provides Choices for SMBs  

 

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