TalkingHeadz with Ram Menghani of NEC
NEC is a brand I’ve admired for a long time. I cherished my 17″ NEC MultiSync monitor in the 90s as well as so many other NEC products. I’ve followed its UC solutions closely over the decades. NEC, like Avaya,…
TalkingPointz Research: NEC and Intermedia
This week, NEC announced a strategic partnership with cloud-provider Intermedia. NEC has a long, glorious history in communications. The company was founded in 1899 and originally worked closely with Western Electric to create the Japanese telecommunications infrastructure. The company is…
NEC Adding Cloud-based Value
NEC has been steadily adding cloud-based business applications to its UNIVERGE BLUE portfolio of business communications services, most recently adding the UNIVERGE BLUE ONDemand Collaboration video conferencing cloud service based on technology from Vidyo. Under this partnership, NEC channel partners…
A Look at Percipia
At Avaya Engage I ran into Hospitality Expert Speleos Dravillas – now at Percipia. Hotels have a grudge against telephones, and Speleos wants to fix it. Phones used to be a profit-center for hotels, but due to A) overcharging and B)…
A Year in SMB
More options are always a good thing, and in that sense, 2017 was a good year for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) seeking new business communications solutions. Market statistics vary, but all agree that the SMB opportunity is a massive…
NEC UNIVERGE BLUE: What’s New, What’s Next?
Simplification is the name of the game with the latest updates to NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE unified communications as-a-service (UCaaS). The company has been looking at ways to make it easier for channel partners to position, sell and support the cloud-based…
NEC Advances, Rebrands UCaaS Offer
NEC advances and rebrands its unified communications as-a-service (UCaaS) offering as UNIVERGE BLUE Business Cloud Services. First launched in March 2013 as NEC UNIVERGE Cloud Services, the updated and rebranded UNIVERGE BLUE service is available directly from NEC and through…
Cloud Contact Center: Watching the Shift
Acceptance and adoption of hosted/cloud solutions for business telephony and unified communications is well underway. This includes a shift toward cloud contact center services as businesses recognize the benefits in subscribing to a contact center solution “as-a-service” rather than purchasing…
Split-Up or Shut-Up
In a recent interview, investor superstar Marc Andreessen told Bloomberg’s Emily Chang at the Salesforce Dreamforce Conference on Wednesday. that if a technology company is more than 20 years old, then “they’ll probably benefit from being broken up, and many of them…
Do UC SDNs?
I’d like to make some key points about SDNs. First, UC is the killer app for enterprise-wide SDNs. I wrote about this at SearchUC here. However, UC will not be the driver of SDNs, nor are SDNs going to be…
Visit to Tokyo
Thanks to NEC hosting its iExpo conference in Tokyo, I had my first trip to Japan. When I was fairly young my father did some business in Japan and exposed to me many of the cultural aspects he enjoyed. For…
Next: NEC iEXPO 2013
My last conference for the year will be NEC iEXPO 2013 and the C&C (computers and communications) User Forum in Tokyo. Did you know that NEC has been providing telecom solutions for longer than any other UC and Telecom vendor? The…
Giants Competing
For the past several months, the UC conversation shifted toward a Microsoft v. Cisco debate. Cisco enjoys a market share lead over Microsoft in UC, but Lync is experiencing rapid growth. Microsoft has its sights on dethroning Cisco. Personally, I…
Two Different Pictures
A few months ago, highly respected and legendary prognosticator Elliott Gold predicted that Vidyo would pass Polycom. At the time it didn’t seem particularly reasonable. But as Elliot says “the trend is clear.” My reservations with his prediction were that…
Match the EC13 Vendor to its Tagline
Pop quiz, here’s ten UC taglines spotted at the recent Enterprise Connect (#EC13) conference. Can you match the vendor to its tagline? Vendors Taglines 1 8×8 A Amplify Teams 2 Aastra B Click. Connect. Collaborate 3 Avaya C Cloud Solutions…
A Merry UC Christmas
Dear Santa, It’s been a while since I have written to you. I know you are busy filling the wish lists of deserving children everywhere, but this year the telecom industry needs you more than they do. You see businesses…
UCaaS MQ – Does Platform Matter?
Gartner recently published its UCaaS Magic Quadrant Report for North America. The Gartner MQ reports are about the closest thing this industry (and many other industries) have to the Academy Awards. Gartner does a great job in putting this stuff together. Like…
It’s Busy Out There! UC Summer 2012
It’s been tough! Recessions, wars, scandals, and natural disasters collaborating to keep wallets closed. A lot of the UC sector was forced into hibernation mode, but the frost appears to be melting. The summer months are normally a bit quiet,…
Which One is the Customer Again?
It has been a blur of conferences and ideas, and I haven’t been able to do a proper post. But don’t interpret lack of posts as lack of deep profound thoughts. But I did want to take a moment to…
NEC’s Advantage
This week is the NEC Advantage conference in Florida. NEC actually hosts two back-to-back conferences – the first one is for consultants and dealers, and then comes one for customers. It’s sound logic as they put a significant effort into…