ShoreTel Veteran Returns To Lead Channels

Joe Vitalone, who left ShoreTel to take over the top Americas sales job at LifeSize in 2009, is back at ShoreTel as vice president, channel management. He's responsible for growing channel revenues at ShoreTel and for partner advocacy.

Vitalone, an industry veteran of several decades, was a company officer and vice president for North American sales at ShoreTel for about five years, and had that role during ShoreTel's 2007 IPO . Earlier in his career, Vitalone worked at Mitel and later as a top sales excutive for PictureTel and ViaVideo Communications, later acquired by Polycom. Vitalone was vice president of sales and business development for Polycom starting in 2000.

[Related: ShoreTel Partners Gear Up For New Sales Chief, Program Changes ]

Vitalone's return is part of several recent management changes at ShoreTel. In early April, ShoreTel named two executives to take over the worldwide sales chief role formerly held by Don Girskis. One is Tim Gaines, now vice president of North America sales, and the other is Mark Arman, vice president, international sales and worldwide distribution.

Peter Blackmore, ShoreTel's CEO, said the appointments would help focus ShoreTel in growing its core U.S. and international markets.

"We are tremendously excited to be bringing back a key executive who has a history of driving positive growth in the channel for unified communications," Blackmore said in a statement.

ShoreTel has continued to gain in the channel thanks to the growth of its UC and contact center platforms and also the mobility and cloud services portfolios it gained through acquisitions of Agito Networks and, just two months ago, M5 Networks, now ShoreTel's Cloud Division. ShoreTel has begun recruiting solution providers to pilot sales of cloud services in preparation for a broader program rollout later this year.