NEC Corp. of America will offer Metaphor’s hosted, packaged IVR system to organizations throughout the United States through its direct sales force.

“Our agreement with Metaphor allows us to offer our customers quality solutions that are robust, flexible, easy to deploy, and affordable,” said Eyal Inbar, applications portfolio general manager at NEC Corp. of America.  “NEC will integrate Metaphor’s IVR and prepackaged applications with our industry-leading technology to provide additional value to our customers as we help them generate more revenue and improve their overall customer relationships.”

 “This major new relationship can now cost-effectively bring the benefits of robust IVR to a broad spectrum of businesses. Combining Metaphor’s online packaged IVR solution with NEC’s strong integration skills and resources is an ideal combination for fast deployment of inexpensive and highly scalable IVR solutions. We’ve designed our online IVR solution from the ground up for this type of relationship,” said Michael Kuperstein, CEO of Metaphor Solutions.

The Metaphor online IVR solution provides more than 55 prepackaged IVR applications and supports speech recognition and touch-tone call flow processing for both inbound and outbound IVR and self service applications. Each application can be configured and customized for specific customer requirements by configuring call flow elements, data connectivity to Web services, and event logging.

Metaphor’s Plug & Play IVR solution also features “Try before you buy” and “Pay only what you use”.

Customers can experience live IVR applications from Metaphor, and create a free account to configure and deploy speech IVR applications by visiting the company Web site at www.metaphorivr.com.  Examples of applications include inbound and outbound customer surveys, proactive notifications, telephone banking, bill collection, payment by phone, insurance claims service, order status, appointment scheduling, prescription refill, location finder, inventory and pricing request, and catalog request.

About Metaphor

Metaphor Solutions is a provider of hosted IVR on-demand for mid-market and small businesses. Through its online Plug & Play Web site, Metaphor offers the a portfolio of inbound and outbound packaged applications and fast configuration, development, integration, and management environment for speech IVR applications. Applications are deployed on standards-based infrastructure for hosted or on-premise environments. Metaphor markets its applications both directly and through a network of partners and resellers. Further information and access to the Plug & Play Speech IVR Web site is available at www.metaphorivr.com.

About NEC Corporation of America

Headquartered in Irving, Texas, NEC Corp. of America is a provider of IT, network, and communications products and solutions for service carriers, Fortune 1000, and small to midsize businesses across multiple vertical industries, including healthcare, government, education, and hospitality. NEC delivers a broad portfolio of technology solutions and professional services, including unified communications, wireless, voice and data, managed services, server and storage infrastructure, optical network systems, microwave radio communications, and biometric security. NEC Corp. of America is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NEC Corp., a global technology leader with operations in 30 countries and more than $42 billion in revenues. For more information, please visit www.necam.com.