Shoretel IPO Roadblock - Mitel Launches Lawsuit
/Basically, Mitel is suing Shoretel big time for patent infringement, and the news hit the wires late yesterday.
In the enterprise telephony vendor space, this is a big one. There's not much detail in the press release - no surprise there - but there's been some difficult history between these companies, and it looks like Mitel has strategically timed this release in advance of Shoretel's planned IPO.
Seems very similar to the tacks a number of service provider threw in the road just around Vonage's ill-fated IPO last year. It's another example of how tough it is to go public these days, and it's too early to know if Shoretel was blindsided here, or just felt these patents would never be an issue. More to come, for sure....
Technorati tags: Mitel, Jon Arnold, Shoretel