NEC has announced it will shutter its on-premises unified communications operations outside Japan over “the next few years”.
The vendor explains the decision as responding to the evolving market demand for more cloud-based services in recent years as organisations around the world undergo their collective digital transformation.
A spokesperson for NEC told UC Today:
NEC has announced the decision to exit our on-premise Unified Communications business outside of Japan, over the next few years. This decision follows significant shift of market demands from on-premise to cloud based services in recent years. We are committed to supporting our customers with this phase out and meeting our existing contractual obligations.”
The change applies only to NEC’s on-prem UC products and services. The exit process will not impact current and prospective customers of NEC UNIVERGE BLUE, the vendor’s UCaaS partnership with Intermedia Cloud Communications.
“NEC Corporation intends to exit #UC,” industry analyst Dave Michels responded to the news on LinkedIn. “A decade ago, NEC was the largest PBX maker in the world(…) The timing strikes me as odd. ‘Premises-based’ comms has been ‘out’ for a while, but Avaya, Cisco and Mitel were looking strong at #EC24. #PendulumSwings.”
What Has Been Happening With UNIVERGE BLUE In 2023?
While NEC’s on-premises UC is being shuttered outside Japan, its UCaaS partnership with Intermedia in UNIVERGE BLUE will continue, with an impressive 2023 bolstered by several significant updates and upgrades.
In August, NEC launched innovative healthcare integrations for its UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE contact centre solution.
UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE seamlessly integrates with several prominent healthcare systems, including Epic, Oracle Cerner, and MEDITECH. This enhancement empowers healthcare providers to reduce costs, streamline operational processes, accelerate access to crucial patient information, and deliver exceptional patient care through automated and self-service functionalities.
Meanwhile, in December, NEC launched UNIVERGE BLUE AI ASSISTANT, which added generative AI technology to its UNIVERGE BLUE COMMUNICATIONS PLATFORM.
Leveraging UNIVERGE BLUE PULSE, the new AI assistant harnesses generative AI capabilities to swiftly access information and automate tedious, repetitive tasks. The UNIVERGE BLUE AI ASSISTANT is free and included as part of the UNIVERGE CONNECT UCaaS platform, launched in 2021. This platform offers an extensive range of over 100 enterprise-grade PBX features.
At the heart of NEC’s AI technology, UNIVERGE BLUE PULSE serves as a central component utilised across its CONNECT and ENGAGE platforms. Its functionalities span various areas, including transcription, AI transcription redaction, sentiment analysis, reviewing AI transcriptions, interaction summaries, notes, action items, and virtual backgrounds.
