NEC and T-HT Croatia bring cloud-based business solutions to Eastern Europe

*** For immediate use February 22, 2013



London and Tokyo, February 22, 2013 - NEC Corporation has provided the NEC Cloud Service Broker, a Carrier Cloud Services platform, for Croatia's leading telecom operator Hrvatski Telekom (T-HT) to bring cloud-based business solutions to thousands of potential business customers in Eastern Europe. T-HT is Croatia's leading telecom operator, which already commercially launched its Cloud Services marketplace in December 2012.

The cloud project sets many standards in the arena; it is the first in Eastern Europe for NEC and NEC's first entry in to cloud services for the Deutsche Telekom (DT) Group, of which T-HT is part. It will provide T-HT's SMEs and enterprise customers with a range of cloud-business applications including video conferencing, email, ERP, CRM and many other solutions "as a service".

The SaaS model not only allows T-HT's customers quick, easy access to the applications they need to boost business, but it also enables them to manage IT expenditure effectively by cutting down the cost of purchasing and maintaining business applications and services. Customers will be able to buy T-HT's self-developed applications, applications from local ISVs (an independent software vendor) and access the portfolio of NEC's global Independent Software and Services Vendors (ISSV) network.

Nicolae Varvara, vice president, carrier business, NEC Europe commented: "With this announcement, NEC takes another important step in the cloud solution marketplace. We hope to expand this service to other DT group operators in Europe, helping them to use the cloud and SaaS solutions to open up new business opportunities. The project will allow T-HT to boost its innovative services with an efficient model that reduces time-to-market and supports SMEs by breaking down the barriers they face when looking to utilise new IT solutions."

"Benefits of that model are obvious and wide-reaching," added Mirela Šešerko, Operating Director of the Information and Communication Technologies Business Solutions Sector of Hrvatski Telekom. "By means of ICT Marketplace HT wants to expand its offer of cloud services and offer them all to the customer at a single point. For customers this means that now they can procure business applications and infrastructure in a fast and efficient manner, in the amount they need, and precisely when they need them. Also, our attempt in applying this model is to shorten the time of delivery as much as possible, for example a virtual server or a virtual computer is available in 15 minutes at the most. Earlier, the procurement of a server required the implementation of the whole procurement procedure which could have taken up to two weeks."

The use of ICT Marketplace is very easy, all you need is Internet access and a computer or a tablet. There is no installation on the computer - all applications use the "click and run" model. Once taken over, the application can be further used from any device, anytime, and anywhere. Applications for desktop computers can be used offline as well. All applications and ICT services are completely administrated by customers with customer support of T-HT　being available 24/7. Thanks to this service, the business customers do not have to worry anymore about installation CDs, procurement, maintenance, patches, etc. All they need for their everyday work is on the web, just a few clicks away, without any worries about licenses.

A great advantage of the ICT Marketplace is that it will allow all business customers, regardless of their business activity, to search, try, and lease applications in accordance with the business processes. This will allow for savings because companies will no longer need any large capital expenditures, as well as for higher business efficiency because they can better focus on their core business.

The NEC Cloud Service Broker is robust, feature-rich and a proven cloud management and aggregation platform to simplify the delivery of cloud services. Developed by NEC's Cloud Competence Centre in Spain and installed in HT Data Center, the Cloud Services platform has also been integrated with T-HT's back-end billing system. As part of the deal, NEC is also managing the recruitment and integration of selected business applications from ISSVs, focusing on those that are best suited to the Croatian market.

With its Cloud Competence Centre in Spain and Japan, NEC has pioneered the provision of SaaS, Desktop as a Service (DaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions for telecom operators by contributing to more than 20 commercial cloud service projects in Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific region. Looking forward, NEC will continue to capitalise on valuable know-how of integrated IT and network technologies in order to globally expand its cloud service business for telecom operators.

About Hrvatski Telekom
The T-HT Group is the leading provider of telecommunications services in Croatia, offering fixed and mobile telephony services as well as wholesale, Internet, IPTV, data and ICT services.
Hrvatski Telekom d.d. and subsidiary companies provide electronic communications services and ICT services supported by efficiently built and maintained electronic communications networks within the Republic of Croatia. In addition to the provision of fixed telephony lines services (fixed telephony line access and traffic, as well as fixed network supplementary services), the Group also provides broadband, payTV and ICT services, data transmission, operating with GSM, UMTS, HSDPA and LTE mobile networks.


About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilize the company's experience and global resources, NEC's advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. NEC brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society.  For more information, visit NEC at http://www.nec.com.

NEC is a registered trademark of NEC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Other product or service marks mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. (C)2013 NEC Corporation.

Press Contacts

Shinya Hashizume
NEC Europe Ltd.
+44-(0)20-8752-2796
E-Mail:shinya.hashizume@emea.nec.com

Maja Weber
Odjel za odnose s javnošću
Hrvatski Telekom
+385-(0)1-4912-100
E-Mail:maja.weber@t.ht.hr