NEC launches new integrated SaaS application portal

By Sonia Han, CommsDay

NEC Australia has launched an integrated SaaS application store, ‘Applications Net’, which provides third party and NEC-developed software and telephony services via a single portal targeting small and mid-sized businesses. Independent application vendors and developers will be able to add their software to the service.

The portal was developed at NEC’s Applications Centre facility in Melbourne and will be made available in Australia first and then rolled out to other countries worldwide. The available applications include CRM software, hosted telephony and call centre solutions, as well as unified communications.

NEC plans to increase the number of offerings “significantly” over time.

“We’re providing all the flexibility and cost effectiveness of the SaaS model, with telephony, collaboration and integration that hasn’t been available before,” said NEC Australia applications and content product manager Davide Iacovitti.

NEC will host the service offering, which will be available to any business in Australia via any ISP, in its Melbourne and Springfield data centres. The firm will deliver the service through its 240-channel community and its NEXTEP broadband service which currently reaches 14,000 businesses.

Smartpath, whose helpdesk and asset management software is part of the offering, said that the new service represents “great opportunities” for NEC’s partners. “We are proud that our Loc8 Asset Management and HelpDesk SaaS solution will join a best-of-breed group,” Smartpath MD David Hodges told CommsDay. “We expect strong demand among SMBs for Loc8 via Applications Net given the model is the first fully integrated SaaS suite of enterprise products available in Australia.”

NEC is already in conversations with SPs in Europe and Asia about offering the service using globally licensed local language software offerings.

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Category: Applications