NEC challenges Cisco and IBM in UC market

NEC Australia announced the next evolution of its UC offering with the launch of a complete software platform, extending its strategy in the market and sounding an additional challenge to IBM and Cisco. The UC700 desktop client is an enterprise-ready, functionally rich software application that allows users to individually customise their communication preferences and presence.

The announcement gives NEC a UC offering in the market with IP communications servers, middleware, feature-rich desktop applications, third-party integration and first-class in-country support.

Steve Woff, Unified Communications Business Manager NEC Australia, said: “Unified communications is all about increasing employee productivity through incremental savings. Our publicly available modelling shows that really quite significant returns are available from properly implemented UC strategies but the focus has to be on the staff - not just an extension of IM technology. Our UC strategy has been developed with the user at the centre, building functionality around them.”

Audrey William, Research Director Australia and New Zealand, Frost & Sullivan, said: “The Australian unified communications services market was estimated to be worth $608.7 million in 2008. UC services will see good growth due to the complex nature of how various technologies are interconnecting with one another. Technologies will no longer only span one single application such as IP telephony. They will increasingly be integrated with other technologies such as video, social networking and web 2.0 applications, mobility, contact centre and ultimately to the business process applications. The main growth will be in areas such as implementation, managed services and integration.”

Woff concluded: "These enhancements to NEC’s unified communications suite, which are the result of input from customers and dealers, bring new levels of productivity to the enterprise that can result in bottom line savings."