Aircel, one of India’s leading telecom players and NEC India, a leading display, network and IT solutions provider has entered into a partnership for Software as a Service (SaaS).
 
Under the agreement, NEC will provide the Cloud Aggregation Platform along with a portfolio of Cloud offerings to Aircel, which has a large customer base.
 
Aircel will be responsible for managing the end-to-end customer relationships, including presales and sales engagements, delivery and support, and billing and contractual relationships.
 
Aircel and NEC will start with a software applications portfolio, which could then subsequently extend to other Cloud offerings.  The focus will be on enterprise grade offerings, such as Collaboration, CRM, ERP, HRMS, Business Suite, Video Conferencing, etc. The software services can be adapted to suit a wide variety of business roles, from sales and support, to internal workgroups providing increased efficiencies and greater workforce productivity. NEC has built up a carrier grade cloud aggregation platform through its engagements with multiple service providers across the globe.
 
At the announcement of the partnership, Ravinder Jain, Chief Business officer, Enterprise, Aircel Limited, said, “Aircel with its Pan-Indian presence and being amongst the first to offer 3G services with its leadership in Data is delighted to foray into the rapidly growing Cloud computing market in India. Cloud Services by the name of “Business Unplugged” from Aircel will help businesses grow by providing flexibility to scale-up quickly and seamlessly according to the changing business environment and demands. According to IT research and advisory firm Gartner, the cloud services market in India is projected to grow 32.4 per cent in2012 to total (US$326.2 million (about Rs 1,665 crore) while Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is the largest segment and is forecast to grow to (US$115.6 million in 2012.”
 
“We have brought together the best-in-class business solutions from a wide range of partners under one roof to benefit business. Our partnership with NEC India will offer business application & productivity solutions, catering to large & medium enterprises, SME/SOHO and PSUs across various industry verticals”, He added.
 
Commenting on the occasion, Angira Agrawal, Associate Vice President, Cloud business, NEC India said, “NEC has built a world class Cloud Aggregation Platform, now deployed at over 25 service providers across 14 countries, and a strong portfolio of cloud offerings built up within NEC and through India focused cloud partners, which will be continuously expanded in the coming months. NEC sees Aircel as a key partner focusing on Cloud, and believes that our partnership with Aircel will fundamentally change the way companies view and adopt cloud services.”
 
An ISO 9000 certified company, Aircel addresses telecom requirements of International and Indian markets with an array of industry-leading products and services. Its range of services includes office/locations connectivity solutions, Internet Leased Lines, managed hosting, data centres, managed services, collaboration services, SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and enterprise mobility solutions. Aircel Business Solutions is the enterprise division of Aircel serving large & medium enterprises, SME/SOHO and PSUs across various industry verticals such as telecom, IT/ITES, banking, education, retail, healthcare and manufacturing with solutions tailor-made to vertical specific business requirements. Today, Aircel Business Solutions reaches out to over 190 countries worldwide and covers entire India with 400+ points of presence (PoPs) delivering industry leading telecom products and services.
 
NEC will manage the complete technology infrastructure for Aircel, and will provide Level 2 support for the Cloud offerings and Cloud Aggregation Platform, and manage all Cloud Service Provider relationships while Aircel will be responsible for all customer relationships.
 
Cloud is a global initiative for NEC, and India is one of the focus countries for NEC’s cloud business. NEC has strong relationships with telecom service providers, as also IT companies worldwide. Telecom service providers play a key role in providing a wide range of cloud services to enterprise customers, from backend telecommunications infrastructure to services on the Cloud such as SaaS.