Minutes of Meeting – November 21, 2003

Dealer Council representatives meeting with NEC Executives

 

This special meeting was called after NEC announced a pending merger between NEC CNG and NEC BNS. 

 

Meeting began at 12:30pm with Kanji Suzuki, Tom Burger, Doug Wonson, Tommy Takashima,  Mike Rosen, and Scott Espy.  NECSI Dealer Council members attending were Chris Jackson, Lawrence Sosna, Mark Lynn (former member), Steve Battista, Greg Osler, Steve Autor and Mark Duckworth.

 

Tom Burger gave a presentation showing current market share statistics.  NEC ranked #3 with 15% of hybrid sales, and #3 in TDM with a 7% share, followed by Mitel with 6 % and Toshiba with 4%.  Next he discussed planned growth projections for NEC.  Tom mentioned that regional NEC staff would be compensated in a way so that NEC staff would be equally compensated if a sale is made by a dealer or a staff member.  Direct sales will continue to focus on the Fortune 1000 list.

 

Planning for the merger is in progress and changes should start taking place starting in January and be in place in time for the beginning of the next fiscal year (April 1).  Tom then showed Gartner reports projecting further converging of voice and data.  The Dealer Council was asked to provide input on various scenarios on future dealer criteria.  NEC will be soon announcing a new IP based product (Univerge) on Nov. 27th.

 

Dealers asked about the Expanets buy-out in progress.  NEC plans to have a statement regarding this on their web page as early as Monday, November 24, 2003.  Avaya will not become an NEC dealer.  NEC will assume warranty for Expanet customers that purchased an NEC system.  The deal is expected to close in the coming weeks.

 

Tom introduced John Boruscheski, who is developing service packages that NEC will be selling (similar to Professional Services) that dealers can sell for installation and ongoing support to customers needing services the local dealer doesn’t provide.

 

Following this meeting, several DC members met with Mike Rosen and Gail Fisher regarding the need for Beta sites for various products.  We provided feedback on what we felt was needed to get dealers to do beta tests.  Members cited additional labor costs when problems develop and that NEC should consider reimbursing for documented hours beyond normal installation time required.  There is a large list of key system beta products that need to get out in the field.

 

Following this meeting, Victor Foia (Active Voice) and Jim Watson (Operations/NTAC) joined the group to discuss voice mail issues.  Victor indicated that our request to move NEC Voice Mail support to Active Voice will be implemented in the next few months.  He mentioned that he is looking into a one-board PC that can be mounted next to the 2000 and plugged into the backplane with a bus cable and be powered by the PBX.  Victor further discussed expansion of Directory Assistance and future speech recognition in Voice Mail products in a single server.  Victor described the ongoing development of the AD-120 product for large system users.

 

Jim Watson mentioned that the Open Problems list should be back on line shortly.  NEC recently completed software changes to link various sites.

 

The council members present pointed out that our product coordinator is Sheldon Allen and that we will feed product issues through Sheldon.

 

End of Minutes of meetings.

 

Respectfully Submitted,

Steve Autor,

Secretary

 

The following are notes that I took in visiting product managers before and after the above meetings.

 

NEC 2000 update:

  1. Release 8  (January, 2004?) (6.1) Enhancement – Group call by pilot number will be allowed for a transferred call.  No conference card required.  This enables an auto attendant or person to answer a call and transfer it to a pilot number which will ring up to 8 phones or wireless phones.  Once a person answers, the other phones stop ringing and a two way call is in progress.
  2. Softphone (SP-20) release 5.05 will work across a VPN.  Dealers can order free demo software for their shop or demo system (2000 IPS).  Be sure to label the PO with demo system – no charge when sending your order in.
  3. E-911 enhancement (R.8) Allows assigning an EMG key to ring on a key phone (not just a console) when 911 is dialed in the system.  Second button will provide an override to enter the call in progress..
  4. School  and H/M feature.  Allows DND to be set/cancel by time of day for groups of phones.  User can over-ride with code.

 

Global Navigator.  New release is on Linux instead of Unix.  You get 1 free seat global wallboard and 1 free seat of Infocast.  Global Wallboard is small screen program that allows administrators to send messages to screens that can either flash or scroll etc.  Infocast allows users to see various splits and live stats.

 

Note:  You install CCW first, then Navigator populates from CCW. If you have 50 seats of Navigator and 60 seats of CCW, the first 50 users will show up in Navigator.