NEC and Intermedia Announce Strategic Global Partnership to Deliver Cloud Communications, Collaboration, and Contact Center Solutions

Agreement Sets a Fast Track for the Global Rollout of NEC UNIVERGE BLUE® CONNECT and NEC UNIVERGE BLUE® ENGAGE

TOKYO & SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701), a leading provider and integrator of advanced IT, communications, and networking solutions, today announced a global strategic partnership with Intermedia, a leading provider of cloud-based Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solutions. Together, NEC and Intermedia are launching NEC UNIVERGE BLUE® CONNECT, a fully integrated and born-in-the-cloud UCaaS solution, and NEC UNIVERGE BLUE® ENGAGE, a CCaaS solution for businesses of all sizes.

For 120 years, NEC has transformed communications and IT for business. With over 80 million business users worldwide, NEC is in the top three globally for installed unified communications seats, and ranks No. 1 for global line shipments over the past 3 quarters.¹

This partnership agreement with Intermedia represents NEC’s rapid global expansion into cloud-based communications and collaboration services.

With over 1,000 employees, 125,000 business customers, and 6,600 active channel partners, Intermedia develops and delivers tightly integrated, extremely reliable, highly secure, award-winning cloud communications software. Sold primarily under private label through a large network of reseller partners and major IT distributors, Intermedia’s solutions drive the communications for businesses of all sizes – from SMB to mid-market to Fortune 1000.

NEC UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT and ENGAGE are built on Intermedia’s innovative, proprietary technology and world-class 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.

“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.”

“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. “Partners 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.”

Introducing NEC UNIVERGE BLUE® CONNECT and NEC UNIVERGE BLUE® ENGAGE

Today, more than ever, businesses need the ability to communicate and collaborate from anywhere at any time, both internally and externally. Businesses need tools that are easy to deploy, use, and provide users with an integrated experience. NEC UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT and ENGAGE are born in the cloud and designed specifically for business of all sizes and the channel partners that serve them.

NEC 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, all available to users through desktop, web, and mobile applications. Built on Intermedia’s born-in-the-cloud UCaaS environment, NEC UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT is intuitive, reliable, and easy to deploy, while remaining highly scalable and extremely cost-effective. NEC UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT helps improve the communications and collaboration of businesses, while being easy for partners to sell, install, and support.

NEC UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE is a cloud-based contact center designed to fit business needs from the small, single channel to the large and sophisticated omni-channel environment. A dynamic CCaaS solution, it combines robust functionality with carrier-grade reliability and world-class deployment and support services. NEC UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE helps businesses differentiate from the competition where it matters most – the customer experience.

“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.”

Availability

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

NEC UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT and ENGAGE will be brought to market exclusively through NEC’s Business Partner community, complementing their existing offerings and creating opportunities for partners to earn increased revenue through new programs designed to facilitate deeper customer relationships.

Customers will have access to a new set of cloud-based solutions for unified communications and contact center under the NEC UNIVERGE CONNECT and ENGAGE brand name. The follow-on 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.

About NEC Corporation

NEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. The NEC Group globally provides “Solutions for Society” that promote the safety, security, efficiency and equality of society. Under the company’s corporate message of “Orchestrating a brighter world,” NEC aims to help solve a wide range of challenging issues and to create new social value for the changing world of tomorrow. For more information, visit NEC at https://www.nec.com.

NEC Media Contacts

US – NEC Corporation of America, media@necam.com

EMEA – Robert Van Amerongen, NEC Enterprise Solutions, Robert.van.Amerongen@EMEA.NEC.COM

Japan and Rest of World – Joseph Jasper, NEC Corporation, j-jasper@nec.com

About Intermedia

Intermedia is a leading Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS), business cloud email and productivity applications provider hyper-focused on delivering easy-to-use and secure communication and collaboration solutions to businesses and the partners that serve them. More than 125,000 business customers and 6,600 active partners rely on Intermedia’s tightly integrated suite of cloud applications that are managed through one intuitive point of control and are backed by 99.999% uptime SLAs and J.D. Power-certified 24/7 technical support. Solutions include the all-in-one cloud communications and collaboration platform Intermedia Unite®, Intermedia Contact Center, AnyMeeting® web and video conferencing, file sharing and backup, business email, security, archiving, and more.

Intermedia’s 360° approach to partner success makes it easy for channel partners to sell, set up, manage, and support the cloud while achieving strong margins and creating attractive new revenue streams through both branded, co-branded, and private label programs.

Intermedia is the only business cloud application provider to have been certified by J.D. Power for its superior 24/7 technical support four years in a row – 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. For more information, visit our website, or connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.

¹ NEC Press Release: NEC Holds No. 1 Position as Worldwide Market Leader in the Global Call Control Market; and T3i Group, “Global InfoTrack for Enterprise Communications, Third Quarter 2019 Summary Results”

© 2020 NEC Corporation. NEC and UNIVERGE BLUE are registered trademarks of NEC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Other product or service marks mentioned are the trademarks of their respective owners.

J.D. Power 2019 Certified Assisted Technical Support Program, developed in conjunction with TSIA. Based on successful completion of an audit and exceeding a customer satisfaction benchmark for assisted support operations. For more information, visit www.jdpower.com or www.tsia.com.

AnyMeeting and Intermedia Unite are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Intermedia.net, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

Contacts

Intermedia – Contacts
Darcy Mekis

Intermedia

650.946.1998

dmekis@intermedia.net

Tammy Olson

Hotwire for Intermedia

619.308.5222

IntermediaUS@hotwireglobal.com