Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

Intermedia Cloud Communications, a leader in business cloud communications and collaboration solutions, announced that NEC, a leading global provider and integrator of advanced IT, communications and networking solutions, has launched new cloud communications solutions in Japan designed to enhance the performance, mobility and capabilities of existing on-premises NEC business phone systems. The new solutions, jointly developed by Intermedia and NEC, eliminate barriers to unified communications as a service (UCaaS) adoption in Japan. NEC Univerge Blue Cloud Gateway is the most recent UCaaS solution released by Intermedia and NEC as part of their 10-year exclusive global partnership.

Cloud Gateway is a new add-on to the recently launched NEC Univerge Blue Hybrid, which layers on a full suite of cloud-based communications and collaboration services, such as chat, video conferencing, and file sharing, on top of an existing NEC phone system. Univerge Blue Hybrid enables businesses of all sizes to get the most out of their existing phone system while experiencing the greater mobility, versatility and functionality that cloud solutions afford. Hybrid works on both mobile and desktop environments and extends the calling capabilities of the existing on-prem system to remote and mobile workers all through a single application—without the need to replace existing on-prem phone systems, change existing phone numbers or update or purchase additional software.

Cloud Gateway, designed for the NEC Aspire phone system, is an optional add-on to the HYBRID solution. When paired with Hybrid, Cloud Gateway further enhances the capabilities of the on-prem phone system with even more sophisticated calling functionality, such as concurrently ringing multiple phones (office and desktop/mobile softphone), enabling call transfer to another user at home or in the office and bi-directional call flip for one button call transfer between a user’s desk phone and their mobile and desktop soft phones.

These innovative solutions address many of challenges that have, to date, limited broader business and channel partner adoption of UCaaS in the Japan market. Specifically:

1. The new NEC solutions enable customers to receive and manage calls more efficiently, working with the existing on-prem phone systems due to their ability to integrate multiple communications devices together (e.g., office phone, remote work PC, smartphone, tablet, etc.).
2. Concerns over migrating from an on-prem system to a cloud-based solution are eliminated as the customer is able to maintain its existing on-prem system while also realising the benefits of cloud features and functionality.
3. Instead of having to source multiple providers for various UCaaS solutions, NEC Univerge Blue Hybrid integrates business phone, chat, video conferencing, file sharing and more together—and all from NEC.
4. For partners, NEC’s partner-first go-to-market approach enables partners to sell Hybrid and Cloud Gateway directly to their customers and maintain and manage their important customer relationships.

“Hybrid and Cloud Gateway remove the concerns of many Japanese customers who are interested in UCaaS but are hesitant to adopt it,” said Makoto Omi, President at Intermedia Japan. “Uniquely offering multiple ways to integrate their existing NEC premise-based phone system with cloud applications provides NEC customers with more choices in how they choose to take advantage of the cloud and bring on more tools for the modern and mobile worker.”

NEC and Intermedia plan to continue enhancing the Univerge Blue suite of cloud communications and collaboration solutions to empower people to work even better from wherever. HYBRID is offered per user per month and, along with Cloud Gateway, can be purchased through, and managed by, authorised NEC partner dealers.

(0)(0)