LongBoard Develops VOIP for NEC

TOKYO and SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- NEC Corporation (NEC), a leading provider of innovative communication solutions, and LongBoard, a leading developer of compelling voice applications for carriers, today announced an agreement to deliver business use voice applications and other differentiated voice solutions so carriers can host new services and gain new revenue.

This enhances NEC's robust VoIP solutions, and significantly accelerates LongBoard's entry into the carrier market for voice applications. The NEC/LongBoard initiative is driven by the growing service provider demand for business-critical IP voice applications to support new services, retain customers, and grow revenues.

Gartner, Inc., a leading IT industry analyst firm, estimates IP telephony service revenues to surpass $2.3 billion by 2007 in Japan. According to Kenshi Tazaki, Vice President of Japan research for Gartner, "The real value of the technology exists in integrating business communications with business processes and workflow applications."

"NEC is proud to partner with such a reliable supplier and innovative force in the VoIP marketplace. The alliance allows us to more rapidly secure a leadership position by providing applications that add immediate value as part of our comprehensive IP voice solutions to our customers," said Shigeru Osawa, General Manager of NEC Corporation.

"NEC's strong market presence with deep customer relationships, broad portfolio of communication products, and global reach make them an ideal partner for LongBoard," said Gary Tauss, President and Chief Executive Officer of LongBoard. "Our initiative with NEC can deliver demonstrable value to carriers who want to rapidly deploy new services and gain revenues."

NEC will integrate the LongBoard's Multimedia Applications Platform (LMAP®) into NEC's award-winning VoIP product suite to deliver a variety of voice services over an end-to-end, carrier-class IP softswitch-based system. NEC can exploit LMAP's full capabilities and provide such compelling applications as OnePhone and Voice Chat in the future. General availability is expected in late spring.

NEC Corp.

LongBoard Inc.