VoIP hardware maker Apivio has announced that NEC Corporation of America has made a large order of its Monet series of phones.
"NEC (News - Alert)'s commitment to our VoIP enterprise video phone is strong recognition of our best-in-class technology," Rob Bakshi, Apivio president and CEO, said. "We are excited that NEC has integrated the Monet phone with most of their PBX (News - Alert)'s since this will expose this product to a larger customer base. We look forward to supporting NEC's efforts to market this phone globally and increase market share of these innovative phones."
The Monet M1 UT880 phone is based on Android (News - Alert), already a very popular mobile platform. The company’s device uses a desktop form factor with a 7-inch touchscreen, resembling a tablet with a phone handset attached.
In addition to the ability to make voice calls that other VoIP phones have, the Monet also has a 1.3-megapixel camera for video conferencing.
The Canadian company is targeting the phone toward companies that need teams to collaborate closely.
NEC has ordered 2,000 of them and Apivio expects to complete the shipment in the third quarter of 2016. This builds on the 10,000 phones already ordered by NEC last year.
NEC is in turn integrating the Monet phone with its PBX systems, including the Univerge SV9000, SV9300 and SV9500.
The Monet phone is heavily integrated with NEC in other ways. Users can install Android apps designed for the enterprise on the phone using NEC’s Marketplace App Store. Since most users will be using the phones next to their computers and will likely own a smartphone already, it will face some competition on the app front.
The device shows the power of Android as an open platform. Apivio benefits from the ability to take Android and run it on its own hardware without having to create a custom OS.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson