Mitel Creates Dedicated Unit To Drive MiCloud Sales

Mitel tapped Steve Kelly, former vice president of international sales for wholesale services at BT, to lead the new unit. In his role as director of sales, Kelly, a 25-year telecom industry vet, is responsible for driving sales of Mitel's MiCloud suite of collaboration and voice solutions.

Mitel's new cloud unit is the latest in a string of investments the Ottawa-based company has made in cloud-based UC. In March, Mitel unveiled a partnership with Sprint, through which Sprint is carrying Mitel's hosted PBX solutions as part of the carrier's broader Cloud Wholesale Services portfolio. The partnership also allows Sprint channel partners to resell Mitel's cloud-based voice and UC products.

[Related: Mitel Acquires Contact Center OEM PrairieFyre ]

Mitel in April also unveiled its AnyWare Cloud Contact Center, a suite of hosted contact center management applications targeted at small and midsize businesses.

According to Mitel, this cloud push already is paying off. Jon Brinton, general manager of Mitel's cloud business, said in a statement that Mitel has more than 300,000 public and private cloud users leveraging its UC products today, representing a 71 percent increase year over year. Kelly and his team are tasked with fueling that growth.

"To take full advantage of this opportunity, we've built a dedicated and global MiCloud sales team under the strategic direction of Steve Kelly to further fuel and accelerate growth in this area," Brinton said.

Kelly's appointment is one several shake-ups Mitel has made to its sales team this year. In June, Mitel tapped former LifeSize executive Sandra Hill as its new vice president of channel management and distribution. In March, the company named Joe Vitalone, former vice president of channel management at ShoreTel, as its new executive vice president of sales for the Americas.

PUBLISHED SEPT. 17, 2013