Tokyo, December 18, 2013 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) is releasing a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) cloud service in Thailand through its local subsidiary NEC Corporation (Thailand) Ltd. Under the brand name "Obbligato for SaaS," it offers integrated management of technical information for products such as design drawings, specifications and parts lists throughout the product lifecycle for manufacturers. It is the industry's first PLM cloud service to be offered from data centers in Thailand.
A growing number of Japanese manufacturers are establishing operations in Thailand, which is currently trending toward the local design and development of new products from the perspective of cultivating Asian markets and the China-plus-one strategy. This is in addition to the conventional localization of products designed and developed in Japan. Accordingly, there are rising needs for PLM solutions that effectively manage the product technical information that is vital to manufacturers, such as design drawings, specifications and parts lists, as well as related documents.
NEC's Obbligato for SaaS defines operational functions for bill of material (BOM) management, document management and design change data management as standards, and implements them as services based on expertise accumulated through the Obbligato series of PLM software, which holds the largest market share() in Japan after its introduction at upward of 750 corporate customers. This enables users to begin working with the SaaS-type PLM cloud service quickly and at a low cost, without individual customization.
After introducing the Obbligato service, corporate design teams can enable use of PLM systems in only about two weeks. Since they can be quickly updated, PLM systems are always available in its latest form. Assuming 10 users, startup costs and five years of operation are nearly 60% lower compared to independently constructing and operating a PLM system. The Obbligato service is also offered from data centers in Thailand, which means users can enjoy stability and response speed comparable with those of the same service in Japan.
Going forward, NEC will proactively promote sales of the Obbligato series to manufacturers throughout the region and all over the world in order to further bolster its PLM solution business.
For specific features of Obbligato for SaaS, please refer to the Appendix.
NEC Corporation specializes in the manufacturing and marketing computing and telecommunication equipments. Net sales break down by activity as follows:
- IT services (53.9%): integration, maintenance, outsourcing, support services, etc.;
- sale of IT infrastructure products and network systems (17%). In addition, the group provides network services;
- sale of digital government and financial services software (14.9%);
- other (12.7%): sale of hardware, mobile telephones, lighting products, energy management and storage systems, etc.
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: Japan (75%), Asia/Pacific (11.2%), Europe/Middle East/Africa (9.8%) and Americas (4%).
NEC CORPORATION 
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