**Editor’s Note: Please click here for a recap of the biggest channel-impacting merger and acquisition news from August.**

Mitel on Monday completed its $430 million acquisition of ShoreTel, signaling its aggressive move into communications platform as a service (CPaaS) with ShoreTel’s Summit platform, taking on Cisco, Vonage and RingCentral.

With the merger, Mitel said it has accelerated its move-to-the-cloud strategy, shifting into the No. 2 market share position for unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) globally. Mitel and ShoreTel’s combined annual sales total $1.3 billion. The combined company also will have about 3,200 channel partners, and a portfolio of communications and collaboration offerings.

“Digital transformation is rapidly changing business models in every industry and every corner of the globe, opening the door to disruptive opportunities for companies to grow and compete,” said Rich McBee, Mitel’s president and CEO. “For businesses, moving to a cloud communications and collaboration system inside their own organizations is a natural first step on their digital-transformation journey. Mitel and ShoreTel are now stronger together and even better equipped to help take our customers to the cloud, seamlessly and simply.”

When the acquisition was announced, Todd Abbott, Mitel’s executive vice president of global sales, said the pairing creates a supplier with the scale, technical capabilities, a broad portfolio and future outlook “our partners can leverage to take businesses of all sizes and kind to the cloud.”

Mitel and ShoreTel partners and customers can continue to “count on the same cloud and on-site solutions they always have,” according to Mitel. The company will provide ongoing service and support for all products throughout their life cycles, and partners and customers will be notified and updated in advance of all product announcements, it said.