Wifi Revolution

Fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) solutions provider FirstHand Technologies has reportedly signed an agreement with NEC (News - Alert) Corp. to fully integrate its FirstHand Enterprise Mobility Solution with the NEC UNIVERGE portfolio.

Using the combined solution, corporate customers will be able to “push” enterprise PBX functionality to smart phones and dual-mode devices, including BlackBerries, Nokia (News - Alert) E-series devices and Windows Mobile devices, over both the cellular and WiFi networks. This means corporate employees equipped with these mobile devices will have all the features of the company PBX (News - Alert) at their fingertips – no matter where they are on the globe. These features include corporate directory lookup; enterprise extension dialing; presence; instant messaging; Outlook contact integration; ad-hoc mobile conferencing; and visual voicemail.

The FirstHand Enterprise Mobility Solution includes the FirstHand Mobility Gateway, which integrates with VoIP infrastructure, including voice mail and conferencing, and securely extends these services to mobile devices; the FirstHand Mobile Assistant, an add-on application to popular models of cellular devices (such as BlackBerry (News - Alert), Nokia E60/61, Win Mobile Smartphones and PDAs) that provides access to enterprise VoIP application services; and the FirstHand Mobile Console, an application for dual-mode WiFi/cellular devices that provides a unified user experience in either network mode.

The solution gives everyone in the enterprise a single phone number, and, using the screening details of the PBX, coupled with the “find me” feature delivered via the FirstHand Enterprise Mobility Gateway (News - Alert), calls can be automatically forwarded from the desktop phone to additional numbers - including mobile numbers - or just to voice mail. The system lets the user decide whether to accept, forward or ignore the call. With FirstHand Mobile Assistant, users can easily access the corporate directory and dial anyone with a click of the button. They can also initiate conference calls and send instant messages, in real-time, directly to other system users. The Mobile Assistant and Mobile Console work with a variety of single mode/dual mode devices including WiFi, WiFi and GSM and WiFi and CDMA devices. Conveniently, the users don’t all have to be associated with a single mobile operator’s service – regardless of which carrier they use, they can still get all the aforementioned features on their mobile devices.

Meanwhile, NEC’s UNIVERGE Assured Mobility, which was introduced late last year, is a comprehensive set of solutions for providing mobile workers with secure communications from any location, using any managed device. Overall, the solution incorporates distributed traffic control, fixed mobile convergence, application integration and simplified deployment configurations, with NEC’s Wireless Optimized Architecture (WOA) as the foundation. WOA is designed to support advanced SIP over WLAN. Just like the FirstHand Enterprise Mobility Solution, UNIVERGE also delivers features which are “pushed” out from the company PBX, including unified messaging, location services support, presence, intelligent call redirection and asset management which can be utilized from many mobile devices, offering flexibility and customization.

“We’re very impressed with FirstHand Technologies’ expertise in mobilizing the enterprise workforce,” said Jay Krauser, GM product management, NEC Unified Solutions, in a press release. “By partnering with FirstHand Technologies, our enterprise customers will benefit from seamless mobility, unified messaging, single number reach and increased productivity.”

For more information, visit www.necunified.com and www.firsthandtech.com.

--------

Patrick Barnard is Assignment Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.

Back to WiFi Revolution home