NEC enters comms-aaS market with new partnership

NEC Corporation and Intermedia have formed a global strategic partnership with Intermedia, to launch new unified communications (UC) and contact centre solutions.

Univerge Blue Connect is a fully integrated UCaaS (UC-as-a-service) solution. Univerge Blue Engage is a CCaaS (contact-centre-as-a-service) solution for businesses of all sizes.

Intermedia develops and delivers cloud communications software that is sold primarily under private label through a large network of reseller partners and major IT distributors.

The Connect and Engage solutions are built on Intermedia's technology and support and will be brought to market through NEC's partner ecosystem.

"This is a big move for both NEC and Intermedia. When you combine NEC's global reach and relationship with their channel, and Intermedia's world-class UCaaS and CCaaS offerings, you have to take notice," says Frost - Sullivan information and communications technologies vice president Elka Popova.

"This gives NEC a clear path to help their customers with their cloud migration to enable much of what's needed in today's business environment, specifically remote work and meetings."

Univerge Blue Connect is a cloud-based business communications platform that combines a full-featured cloud-based phone system, chat, video conferencing, and file sync and share, available to users through desktop, web, and mobile applications.

Univerge Blue Engage is a cloud-based contact centre designed to scale for business needs from a small, single-channel to a large omni-channel environment.

The solutions will be brought to market exclusively through NEC's Business Partner community.

The expanded offering will integrate with NEC premise-based systems, enabling NEC customers to leverage their existing on-premise telephony investments while additionally providing the option of expanding to new locations with cloud-based video and collaboration services.

"After a comprehensive review of the market, Intermedia was the clear winner. Intermedia's UCaaS and CCaaS solutions are elegant, intuitive, and deliver a seamless experience that allows for highly reliable and secure anytime, anywhere communications," says NEC enterprise communications technologies product development senior vice president Ram Menghani.

"Combining this with its unique, partner-first philosophy and impeccable support and reliability - including its 99.999% guaranteed uptime service level agreements and being the only business cloud application provider to have been certified by J.D. Power for its superior 24/7 technical support now four years in a row - made Intermedia the perfect fit for NEC."

Intermedia is NEC's exclusive UCaaS and CCaaS provider world-wide, with rollout commencing in the United States within Q2 2020.

"Our formula has been pretty simple - first, deliver highly reliable and secure, easy-to-use and manage, feature-rich cloud applications that allow users to communicate how they want, where they want, and when they want. And then, back those products with the sales, marketing, onboarding, billing, and technical support partners need so they can focus on winning more business and earning greater top-line revenue," says Intermedia CEO Michael Gold.

"By teaming with NEC, we look forward to working together to provide our UCaaS and CCaaS solutions to help drive better communications for a broader global audience."