NEC and Intermedia Launch NEC UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT UCaaS Solution

NEC has been a tech and unified communications leader for many decades. There are few tech companies that have been around for 120 years like they have.

The skillset needed to be great at cloud is different than what you needed to design amazing hardware solutions. Although NEC has a cloud solution, it wasn’t gaining great traction in the market. At least not the traction you would expect from a powerful incumbent. So NEC pivoted to digital transformation technology – a smart move, allowing organizations to integrate communication as into their very fabric.

The challenge is the larger companies that benefit from such integration have great relationships with Avaya, Microsoft and Cisco.

Paul Kievit, President and Head of NEC Enterprise Solutions EMEA and Americas

Speaking of Avaya, their relationship with RingCentral obviously got NEC thinking.

They have an amazing brand and channel – global distribution built over a century. Yet, they aren’t gaining the cloud traction they want. Rather than let customers move to a competitor, why not pick one, partner and come up with a revenue-sharing agreement where everyone wins?

Behold: The Intermedia-powered NEC UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT is a new, fully integrated and born-in-the-cloud UCaaS solution, and NEC UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE, a CCaaS solution for businesses of all sizes.

The product name is a mouthful but it does remind those who know of the deep technical expertise of NEC engineers.

Intermedia is no slouch either, with over 1,000 employees, 125,000 business customers, and 6,600 active channel partners.

NEC UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT and ENGAGE are built on Intermedia’s technology and support and will be brought to market through NEC’s robust partner ecosystem. With NEC UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT and ENGAGE, NEC is bolstering its global cloud communications offerings to fully support customer organizations in their migration to the cloud.

“The global NEC Group continues to be committed to helping customers solve a wide array of both business and societal issues and challenges, not the least of which is building a sustainable and more efficient society through the digital transformation of business infrastructure. This partnership for the delivery of cloud-based communications, collaboration, and contact center solutions with Intermedia allows NEC and its global network of partners to build toward a brighter future with the utmost care for quality, cost, and customer service,” said Kimihiko Fukuda, Senior Vice President, NEC Corporation and President, NEC Platforms, Ltd.

Michael Gold, CEO, Intermedia

“NEC is committed to helping businesses meet the demands of today’s digital workforce through our Smart Enterprise portfolio, and we recognize that enabling customer migration to the cloud is a key component,” said Paul Kievit, President and Head of NEC Enterprise Solutions EMEA and Americas. “To support this rapid migration on a global scale, NEC aimed to team up with a born-in-the-cloud partner that could provide a best-in-class, fully-integrated suite of UCaaS and CCaaS solutions.”

Ram Menghani, SVP of Product Development for NEC Enterprise Communications Technologies, further stated, “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 allow for highly reliable and secure anytime, anywhere communications. 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.”

Ram Menghani, SVP of Product Development for NEC Enterprise Communications Technologies

“It’s an incredible honor to enter into this relationship with NEC – not only because they are such a trusted leader and well-respected brand in the global unified communications space, but, like Intermedia, they also put partners first,” said Michael Gold, CEO, Intermedia. “Partner serve as the trusted IT advisors to the business community, and I’m proud that we’ve built Intermedia into the leading, partner-first cloud communications software company that it is today. 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. With this focus, Intermedia has built an active partner community that is 6,600 strong and growing. 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.”

Elka Popova, Vice President, Information and Communications Technologies, Frost & Sullivan

“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,” said Elka Popova, Vice President, Information and Communications Technologies, Frost & Sullivan. “Now, more than ever, 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.”

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