Australian-developed SaaS platform for Spanish telco

Peter Dinham
Tuesday, 14 July 2009 12:42

IT Industry - Deals

According to Iacovitti, through the SaaS platform, Telefónica would provide a variety of business application software, such as CRM and asset management tools, as SaaS business for small to mid-sized companies, with the range of business applications scheduled to increase in the future.
 
NEC and Telefónica are slated to jointly expand areas such as PaaS (Platform as a Service) and DaaS (Database as a Service), which Iacovitti said were highly valued aspects of the growing cloud computing field, and, he added, NEC was looking forward to capitalising on the opportunity to promote the expansion of cloud computing business for telecom carriers throughout the world.

According to Iacovitti, Telefónica is an important win for NEC Australia and, he said, it was “proof that our SaaS strategy resonates in the global market.”

“By signing up one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies, it places NEC in a strong position to grow its international customer base. In fact, we are continuing our conversations with other telcos and ISPs – both in Australia and abroad – to sign on more customers.”

NEC Australia, in conjunction with NEC Iberica in Spain, will provide level three support for Telefónica’s customers, which includes management of the platform, Telefonica web marketplace and ISV hosting.

Iacovitti said all the systems integration, design, billing and business modeling for Telefónica was developed in NEC’s R&D Melbourne facility.

NEC Australia managing director, Wataru Takeuchi, said the deal with the Spanish telco was a very real example of how Australian businesses could export ideas and services around the world, and he predicted that with the advent of the new “fast broadband world of the NBN”, there would be “more and more opportunities for Australian businesses to lead the way and export globally.”

Takeuchi said NEC’s commitment to R&D in Australia remained incredibly strong and he said the success of the Applications Net product on a global level “is tremendous proof of this”.