ShoreTel Taps SVP As New President, CEO

Joos takes the reins from ShoreTel's former president and CEO Peter Blackmore, who in May announced plans to retire. Blackmore had been CEO since December 2010.

Joos joined ShoreTel in April 2011 as vice president of global services, and for the past year he has served as senior vice president of business operations. ShoreTel said Joos, in his most recent role, was responsible for overseeing roughly 50 percent of ShoreTel's operations, including the direct management of engineering, R&D, product management, global support and services, and IT.

[Related: Former ShoreTel CMO Lands At Talari Networks ]

Prior to joining ShoreTel, Joos spent nine years as a vice president at Avaya.

In his new role as CEO, Joos said he will place an emphasis on moving ShoreTel's full unified communications (UC) suite to the cloud.

"ShoreTel now has the opportunity to extend its leadership position by fully integrating its cloud offering across its suite of unified communications products," Joos said in a prepared statement. "With some of the highest customer satisfaction in the business, world-class employees and a strong track record of innovation, the company’s prospects are unlimited. I look forward to working with the ShoreTel team during this very exciting time to further accelerate our recent progress."

ShoreTel has been bulking up its cloud strategy since its 2012 acquisition of hosted VoIP specialist M5 Networks, which today makes up the bulk of ShoreTel's Cloud Division. ShoreTel partners applauded the deal as a way for ShoreTel to bolster its hosted UC play and compete more aggressively against bigger UC players like Cisco, Avaya and Microsoft.

ShoreTel said Thursday that cloud revenues from ShoreTel Sky, the company's hosted VoIP and UC service, are up 35 percent year-over-year. ShoreTel, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., also announced a record revenue of $313.5 million for its fiscal 2013 year, up 27 percent compared to the previous year, along with a net loss of $25.7 million for the year.

At market close on Thursday, ShoreTel shares were up 4.31 percent to $4.11.

PUBLISHED AUG. 8, 2013