Vol.7 No.3 (March, 2013)

Special Issue on Smart Device Solutions

Service platforms

SAITO Yoshihiko ・NEZU Satoshi ・ISHIBASHI Takeshi

The rapid dissemination of smart devices in recent years has been changing usage from the initial personal use to business use. However, smart devices are often involved in incidents such as theft or loss, so terminal management and security measures are indispensable for business use. This has led to the growth of security management operations and has made them an important issue.NEC supports enterprises introducing smart devices by preparing a comprehensive, far-sighted range of smart device management and terminal security solutions. This paper introduces details of these solutions.

ASANO Tomohiko ・NAKAGAWA Kenji ・YAJIMA Sonomi ・SAJI Issei ・SAITO Tsuguharu ・HIROKAWA Masaki

Smart devices such as smartphones and tablet terminals, which have disseminated under the leadership of general consumers, are beginning to be used as IT devices within enterprises. They not only meet the simple need for the replacement of mobile phones, but their abundant features such as light weight, mobility, low price, intuitive usability, a camera, a permanent network connection and location information make them applicable to actual cases of paperless and IT business operations that were not possible with devices in the past. On the other hand, the use of smart devices poses new issues that IT departments must solve, such as the need for security at the PC level and measures against short product cycles. This paper introduces three case studies in which smart devices have actually been applied along with some solutions for these issues.

IKEYA Ryohei ・OKADA Hideaki ・KOUDA Keito ・TEZUKA Yukiko

Recently, users of smart devices such as smartphones and tablet terminals have been increasing both in the business and individual markets. In the business environment, the innovative use of smart devices has already begun and situations in which employees perform business tasks from outside the office by using smart devices are increasing. With regard to the individual market, various smart devices have already been released by the mobile carriers. This paper introduces an authentication solution that has been developed at NEC to support users to enjoy smart devices safely, securely and simply under the current trend for use with various terminals, regardless of the chosen OS or network.

MATSUNAGA Keiko ・NAKAYAMA Yoshitarou ・TAKAGI Takahiro ・HONGO Takuya

Smart devices such as smart phones and tablet terminals are gaining remarkable popularity as their utilization spreads among both consumers and enterprises. As various services are now deployed on smart devices and the volume and complexity of such services are increasing more than ever, it is now necessary for the required solutions to be provided as a one-stop service so that solutions are capable of producing optimal value-added services. This paper describes the efforts being made by the authors at NEC for dealing with the current market environment in developing a cloud-based service solution for smart devices.

SHIBANO Sumiko ・TANAKA Eiko ・MATSUMOTO Koujirou ・KAWASAKI Hiroshi ・OISHI Tougo ・MATSUE Satoshi

“BIGLOBE Cloud Hosting” is a public cloud of a genuine Japanese IaaS type, which has been awarded numerous prizes by major business magazines. BIGLOBE has been providing various modes of high quality hosting services to businesses for ten years, cultivating servers, networks, storage and virtualization technologies, while improving the functions of a variety of service platforms, as an ISP business. This paper introduces BIGLOBE Cloud Hosting, a high quality service capable of providing hosting services on demand, built in a short period of time by combining technologies and know-how.

KONISHI Masahiro ・TANAKA Katsunori

Increased network speeds and the wide dissemination of smart devices have brought about significant expansion both in business reforms and in new service provisions using digital content. NEC developed the “Contents Director,” a content distribution service for smart devices in 2012, and it is currently proposing a variety of usage scenarios for the service.Featuring easy-to-use interfaces and flexible distribution management functions, the Contents Director has already been adopted by various enterprises, in the form of either cloud-based or on-premises services.This paper gives an outline of the Contents Director and discusses case studies of its introduction.

KIMURA Satoshi ・YOSHIDA Kazumi

The dissemination of smart devices is rapidly increasing the need for BYOD (“Bring Your Own Device”), the use of individually-owned terminals in business. The UNIVERGE Mobile Portal Service allows a variety of smart devices owned by individual employees to safely use the e-mail, address book and groupware systems of their offices without leaving data on their smart device terminals. As it can be started as a trial involving a small number of users, this paper introduces it as an ideal service for customers who are considering the use of BYOD.

SUZUKI Ichiro ・KADOMATSU Yasuki

An increase in the introduction of enterprise based smart devices has been highlighting issues regarding their introduction, such as effective utilization of existing assets, inheritance of user interfaces and avoidance of the risk of information leaks. The Remote Desktop for Smart Devices is a software product designed to solve introduction issues by taking advantage of the three main features, which are Quick start, Easy to use and safety.This paper describes the functions for implementing these three main features and discusses the prospective usage scenarios.

KOBAYASHI Shigenori ・KOIZUMI Ken

Utilization of smart devices for enterprise systems is becoming increasingly popular. Yet, a wide diversity and variety of smart devices makes it necessary to develop applications that are compatible with multiple devices and platforms. This paper describes techniques for developing applications for smart devices that combine native application development technology with web technology including HTML5 as enabled by the SystemDirector Enterprise (SDE) business system platform.

SATO Naotaka ・ICHIOKA Kouhei

This paper introduces a platform service for use in distributing content to smart devices. The main targets are the enterprises that want to distribute proprietary content (music, movies, etc.) to consumers via smart devices. The service includes functions such as one that is available by integrating and connecting with the authentication and billing functions of mobile phone carriers, and also one that can protect content by linking with applications running on smart devices. These functions are provided by being incorporated in the enterprise-oriented web hosting environment prepared in the BIGLOBE Data Center. This paper is intended to describe the mechanisms of these functions and to consider points to be noted when the service is applied to smart devices.

Smart devices

OHNUKI Takashi ・HANAOKA Taira ・ENOMOTO Koji ・HONDA Kotaro

The “LifeTouch” tablet series can be used easily, featuring a lightweight body, touch panel and Android OS. Advantages include providing the necessary security functions for business use and supporting for customizations such as the addition of other functions or a batch default setup.Three products have been produced according to the different usage scenes. The “LifeTouch L,” which comes with a large 10.1-inch LCD screen, features a thin and lightweight body, it measures 7.99 mm thick and weighs just 540 g. The “LifeTouch B” has a 7-inch screen and can be held with one hand, it is waterproof and could be utilized in various business fields. The “LifeTouch W” features a book-style dual screen, which is adaptable for unique usage scenes.

SAKO Yoshikazu ・SASAKI Noriyasu

Incorporating a 12.5" LCD screen, the newly announced VersaPro Type VZ (VK15E/ZS-G) is a tablet PC that mounts the latest Windows 8 operating system. This paper discusses the product concept and the technological devices that have been employed to commercialize the product.

MORIMITSU Hiroshi ・SATOU Hiroshi ・WATANABE Noriaki ・TARESAWA Eiichi ・OTSUBO Toshimasa ・SATOH Kotaro

The recent activation of the tablet market is encouraging many enterprises to study the use of tablet terminals. At NEC, the Application Appliance Division has been developing products meeting various business operations and business type requirements in collaboration with each customer. For this opportunity, the division has commercialized an Android-based tablet by making full use of our rich experience. This paper introduces the convenience in actual business operations of this product, its features including stability improvements, the process of its commercialization and actual cases in which this product has been introduced.

Solutions

YOKOYAMA Kensuke ・SAITOU Hiroyuki

The recent increase in the diversity of work styles demands changes in our working environments. People are expecting to work in their favorite places and at their most convenient times, rather than working in a certain place like an office during certain hours. The “ConforMeeting” series resolves this issue. By developing it to be compatible with smart devices, the usage scenarios of the “ConforMeeting” series have been significantly expanded. It is now available for use outside offices and it can also be a great tool for seminars, etc.This paper introduces the ConforMeeting series and its innovative usage scenarios.

ASAI Hideo ・INOUE Yasuhide ・IKUMA Eishi

BusinessView (called CSView/Reception Management by NEC) is a contact center application by NEC Nexus Solutions that enables the centralized management of reception processes, starting from the reception of customer inquiries all the way to completion of processing. BusinessView Maintenance Work Solutions improve the efficiency of maintenance staff assignment and the response time to customer requests by performing location management (GPS information) of staff whereabouts and the management of their schedules. It also improves the efficiency of maintenance work by taking advantage of the functions of the smartphones carried by staff, such as searching relevant in-house documents, entering maintenance work data, and enabling printing of the maintenance completion reports from a mobile printer.

TERASAKI Hiroshi ・MANO Etsuko ・TANIKAWA Tadashi ・OKANOUE Kazuhiro ・KAJIKAWA Masahiro ・MARUYAMA Katsuji

A system closely ties the high usability of smart device terminals to Unified Communications can reinforce human-to-human bonds and bring innovation to work styles and lifestyles.This paper demonstrates that a system suitable for health consultation and monitoring services for the elderly can be realized by integrating tablet terminals to the UNIVERGE Remote Consultation Solution through a case study of the use of such system and clarifies how it can offer safety to the lives of elderly persons.

FUKUZAWA Shigekazu ・AMANO Shinichi ・YASUKAWA Takuji

Based on research results of NEC, we are now providing the GAZIRU service. This is an image recognition service that operates on smartphones and comprehensively recognizes objects including three-dimensional objects that have conventionally been regarded as being difficult.By using GAZIRU, companies will now be able to easily take advantage of image recognition technologies; thereby enabling their businesses to take advantage of the new services using image recognition. An overview of GAZIRU and examples of its service applications are described in this paper.

KUBOTA Ichiroh

Smart devices are rapidly disseminating in society and as essential tools of our every day lives are increasingly becoming capable of changing our life styles. Due to their innovative user interfaces, they also have the momentum to effectively change business styles while appealing to the business usage market.NEC System Technologies, Ltd. joined this market trend from its early stages and it has been conducting R&D to apply our products and services in improving the performance of smart devices. This paper introduces details of how we are continuing to promote these activities.

ZENITANI Hiroomi ・NAKANE Kazuhiro ・SHIRAKAWA Atsuhiko

NEC Soft has developed a System Integration (SI) template for business systems that makes use of smart devices to support periodical inspections and checks. The template utilizes Android terminals and is equipped with functions that allow it to be suitable for a variety of business types. An interchangeable components system has been prepared in order to improve the system development efficiency. The template is designed to support global applicability of multi-language compatibility and to promote its deployment in China and Southeast Asia. With a demonstration site built in the OSS cloud-based environment, it is expected to contribute to the discovery by customers of reformed business ideas using smart devices.

IWAMA Eiji ・YOSHII Seishiro

Against the background of an aging population, combined with a diminishing number of children as well as prolonged economic stagnation, there is an ongoing trend in which many public institutions and private enterprises are choosing cloud services for the sake of cost reduction. At the same time, their review of BCPs (Business Continuity Plans) has spurred increased interest in video-based communications, including videoconferencing systems that take advantage of tablets as part of the maintenance of a remote office environment. To meet these needs, NEC offers a multifunctional video communications cloud service that is compatible with multiple devices and multiple protocols while ensuring the capability to link with conventional videoconferencing systems.

Technical researches

Dennis Gessner ・Joao Girao ・Ghassan Karame ・Wenting Li

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is attracting considerable attention nowadays. In BYOD scenarios, enterprises wish to integrate their employees’ mobile devices in enterprise operations (e.g., reading emails, editing documents). This clearly raises serious security concerns since the mobile device in question is not under the control of the enterprise and is vulnerable to a wide range of security threats. In this article, we address this problem and propose a solution that enhances the security in the BYOD scenario without compromising the usability, and flexibility of the system. Our proposed solution does not require modifications to the underlying operating system of the device and enables IT officials to remotely manage their desired security policies.

SAIDA Yoshinori ・IIHOSHI Takahiro ・MORITA Gen ・WATANABE Yoshikazu ・KARINO Shuichi

The increasing use of smart devices in enterprise businesses is making it an urgent task to take proper measures against information leaks. The NEC Cloud System Research Laboratories is conducting R&D into a flexible network control function that links networks and smart devices by introducing OpenFlow technology to smart devices. This paper introduces the improved safety of business communications using smart devices achieved by applying this technology.

TAKANASHI Nobuaki ・SATO Yoshiaki ・OHTA Masahiko ・HIROI Noriyoshi ・OKUMURA Fujio ・YAMADA Akio

In order to provide easy access for all to cloud services, NEC has developed an interactive technology that enables control of information using images displayed by projectors and gesture-based input. This technology enables operations such as selection of information and transfer of data between devices by using gestures and without the need for input devices such as a remote control or mouse. It does this while displaying images that support input in any chosen location over a wide area by combining a micro projector, which is equipped with a movable mechanism, with a camera that measures and recognizes 3D shapes. This helps achieve a natural human-computer interaction that functions intuitively for users and makes it easy for them to understand operations.

TSUJIKAWA Masanori ・OKABE Koji ・HANAZAWA Ken

This paper introduces a technology of noise-robust speech recognition to correctly recognize a user’s speech even in places with a high level of background noise and immediately respond to it, together with applications of this technology. Voice UI is useful when the user’s hands or eyes are busy, but the background noise may cause false operations. The accurate detection of the user’s speech using two microphones and the noise reduction with speech patterns suitable for speech recognition; these techniques enable applications of speech recognition in domains where this has previously been regarded as being difficult. In addition, these techniques also enable the usage of voice UI more natural.

General Papers

SUGAWARA Tomoyoshi ・MIZUKOSHI Yasuhiro ・IWATA Atsushi

A communications outage may occur as a result of congestion of the mobile communications networks or of multiple and simultaneous physical damages to the transmission lines and communications facilities that comprise the mobile communications networks. Such issues may all be caused by a massive and concentrated occurrence of calls and data transfer from and to mobile phones, especially during major natural disasters happen. It is essential therefore for the congestion issues to be resolved and the networks to be restored.As a part of the R&D strategy to solve these issues, this paper discusses suitable technologies designed to enhance processing capacity by using virtualization of the communications services, a priority control technology for mobile traffic using OpenFlow and a quality maintenance technology for virtualized communications services.