Cyprus a base to promote environmentally-friendly IT solutions
NEC Computers, a subsidiary of the Japanese NEC group, has announced the launch of its new “EcoCenter” platform in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region (EMEA), and will use Cyprus to promote its environmentally-friendly IT infrastructure solutions, with the goal of becoming one of the three leading players in the European Server and Storage market by 2015.
NEC’s EMEA Executive Director Tong Chhor said: “Reducing energy consumption is of particular interest to companies operating in intensely competitive markets. Thanks to patented solutions such as the NEC EcoCenter, NEC works with organisations to support their green IT policy.”
Through the EcoCenter solution, “we offer businesses the ability to reduce their operational costs and invest in a product designed according to the group’s sustainable development policy: low energy consumption and lightened structure, longer lifespan of components and the solution, reduced and simplified management time,” said NEC Data Centre solutions manager Laurent Clerc.
The NEC Express5800/ECO CENTER is a compact, easy-to-administer hardware platform suited to “cloud computing” (internet-based office), using low electricity-consumption processors and an aluminium chassis.
The new solution combines: a platform dedicated to virtualisation, which marries power and a reduction in energy consumption; the “SigmaSystemCenter” software suite, which optimises energy consumption and allows simplified, flexible administration; and a modular, “in the rack” architecture that offers scalability and adaptability in network and storage integration.
Development of the EcoCentre is one of the more recent examples of NEC’s global strategic shift in 2009, turning away from the personal computer business and focusing fully on servers and IT infrastructure solutions.
This new focus involves offering businesses personalised, added-value solutions, which in the first place means taking the time to understand the client’s business. As a representative of one major corporate client put it: “NEC didn’t just go away with the brief and execute it. They added real value by helping to redefine and enhance the brief, tailoring it to our needs.”
NEC always aims to base such solutions on innovation and continuity of service. Referring to the group’s 110-year history, Tong said: “Innovation is in the company’s DNA, and has always been a core part of NEC’s strategy. We are among the companies with the largest number of patents in the world: 71,000. Some seven per cent of NEC’s total revenue is spent on research and development. This continual capacity for innovation enables us to undertake an ambitious, far-reaching project in the EMEA region.”
“For example,” Tong said, “NEC can offer the unique solution of the Fault Tolerant System, which prevents crashes by being up 100 per cent of the time. But since it is considered to be a single system by the independent software vendor (ISV), all the licences run on it are counted as one. By avoiding the need to cluster hardware with software, you avoid two investments, so as well as being much faster, the NEC system is cost-efficient.” He added that NEC will launch a new version of the Fault Tolerant System this year.
NEC regards innovation and reducing costs as the same process. As Tong explained to PCMagazine Mid-east in October 2009: “NEC has focused for years on researching new ways of optimizing energy efficiency and costs reduction. Our solutions help a company’s Chief Information Officer to decrease the data centre operating budgets by 50 per cent or even more. Data centres currently account for a quarter of IT-related carbon emissions, and their contribution to climate change is increasing as the number of data centres grows. Controlling energy use and its attendant costs is NEC’s highest corporate priority.”
Beyond the products manufactured by NEC and solutions developed in partnership with infrastructure software publishers or vertical business sectors, NEC is penetrating the SME-SMI and Major Account market place by continuing to develop its reseller and integrator network.
NEC technology can be found in a wide range of products sold by global brand leaders such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Bull, EMC, Sun Microsystems, Unisys and Alcatel-Lucent. “Unlike other manufacturers, NEC’s sales policy is carried out 100 per cent through the indirect channel”, said Tong.
NEC’s regional business development and management in the Middle East, Africa and South-eastern Europe is the responsibility of interFRONTIERS, a Cypriot company set up in 2001. The marketing effort this year will focus on the Middle East, Greece and the Balkans, as well as Cyprus.
interFRONTIERS Managing Director Lenia Iacovides said: “For nearly 10 years, interFRONTIERS has been developing a great partnership with NEC, from recruiting and growing a NEC corporate reseller channel to effectively managing suppliers and partner relationships in Middle East and South Eastern Europe. We strongly believe that NEC’s new strategy will strengthen our co-operation and achieve the highest possible penetration in the SEMEA region.”
“But,” she added, “we’re not the type of competitor that will take out a full-page advert in the Sunday newspapers. We prefer to spend a couple of hours with a specific customer, explaining why our solutions are going to make his life easier.”
Tong said: “We have a lot of ambition. So, we will be investing a lot in promoting ourselves, to let the market know who we are and what kind of products we are selling, because we are deeply convinced that we bring value to the market with our products. And once they try our products – offering technical innovation, cheaper installation and cost-savings going forward – we are confident they will stay with us.”
