SAN FRANCISCO — (October 16, 2002) Critical Path, Inc. (Nasdaq: CPTH), a global leader in digital communications software and services, today announced that mobile operator O2 has selected and implemented Critical Path's personal address book and directory products. The initial deployment of these new services complements O2's existing implementation of Critical Path's messaging applications — including email and Short Message Service (SMS) messaging — which have been integrated with the newly deployed products, making Critical Path the messaging platform of choice for O2.
The Critical Pathä Personal Address Book Server provides a central location for storing personal data such as telephone numbers and email addresses. Unlike competitive offerings, the Critical Path Personal Address Book Server allows contact information to be shared with and accessed by other messaging or third party applications, such as email, SMS or multimedia services, thus enabling O2 to minimize costs and easily deliver new personal communications services that increase customer loyalty and generate new revenues. O2 has also deployed the Critical Pathä Directory Server to store and maintain the digital identities of its customers, thereby allowing O2 to streamline the costs of user account management.
"We selected Critical Path because of the success of our earlier implementation, the expertise of its Professional Services organization, and the unique functionality of the Critical Path Personal Address Book Server, which gives us the ability to leverage contact information across other O2 services," said Dave Evans, vice president, platform development and architecture at O2. "With our growing subscriber base we also needed to consolidate user information into one definitive location, which we have effectively done using Critical Path's Directory Server."
The new Critical Path software, which was purchased in the second quarter of 2002 and deployed in mid-September, has already been successfully integrated with Critical Path's email and SMS solutions, which were deployed by O2 last year. The success of these existing services in helping O2 increase average revenue per user while maintaining the highest level of reliability and scalability led O2 to choose Critical Path over other vendors.
"This competitive win reflects the strength of Critical Path's existing relationship with O2, and also demonstrates the inter-relationship between messaging and identity management," said Derek Watkins, general manager of Northern Europe for Critical Path. "To be secure and manageable, messaging systems depend on having accurate, up-to-date digital identities for each user. We continue to see carrier messaging customers express strong interest in our identity management solutions, which help them to maintain the digital identity of subscribers, provision new messaging services, and tie these services to existing billing and customer care systems."
More than 190 services providers around the world, including more than 40 major telecommunications carriers and the leading Internet Service Providers in more than 20 countries, currently deploy Critical Path's messaging and identity management solutions.
About O2
O2 (UK) Ltd has nearly 11.2 million customers (end June 2002), of which 33% are contract and the remainder pre-pay. The proportion of service revenues generated by data usage has doubled in the last year, with 14.1% achieved for the three months to end June 2002. The number of SMS messages handled on by O2 UK has more than doubled year on year to 3.9 billion. O2 UK's GSM network, including GPRS capability, covers over 99% of the population and approximately 90% of the UK by land area, and comprises over 9,000 base stations.
O2 UK was the first mobile network in the world to have launched and rolled-out commercial GPRS services. Work is underway to develop its future 3G network capability, including a special agreement with T-Mobile for constructive infrastructure sharing for the roll-out of 3G coverage. The company has 211 O2 retail stores located across the UK, plus a 40% shareholding in The Link Stores Limited.
International roaming agreements with 319 networks allow our customers to receive and make calls in 138 countries. Additionally, O2 customers are now able to roam with GPRS in15 countries. O2 UK became the first UK mobile operator to achieve registration to BSEN: ISO 14001, the international environmental standard. The main theme of the standard is continual environmental improvement and endorses our commitment to the positive protection of the environment. The business operations of mmO2 plc are branded O2.
About Critical Path, Inc.
Critical Path, Inc. (Nasdaq: CPTH) is a global leader in digital communications software and services. The company provides messaging solutions — from wireless, secure and unified messaging to basic email and personal information management — as well as identity management solutions that simplify user profile management and strengthen information security. The standards-based Critical Path Communications Platform, built to perform reliably at the scale of public networks, delivers the industry's lowest total cost of ownership for messaging solutions and lays a solid foundation for next-generation communications services. Solutions are available on a hosted or licensed basis. Critical Path's customers include more than 700 enterprises, 190 carriers and service providers, eight national postal authorities and 35 government agencies. Critical Path is headquartered in San Francisco. More information can be found at www.criticalpath.net.
Forward Looking Statements:
This press release contains forward-looking statements by the Company and its executives regarding endorsements of our product and service offerings by our customers and partners, the performance, security, scalability and interoperability of our product and service offerings, the ability of our customers to achieve cost savings in the provision of services, industry trends, market and customer requirements and the ability of our products and services to meet the business needs of our customers, and the market for products and services like ours. The words and expressions "look forward to," "will," "expect," "plan," "believe," "seek," "strive for," "anticipate," hope," "estimate" and similar expressions are intended to identify the Company's forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to, our evolving business strategy and the emerging and changing nature of the market for our products and services, our ability to deliver on our sales objectives, the ability of our technology and our competitors' technologies to address customer demands, changes in economic and market conditions, unplanned system interruptions and capacity constraints, software and service design defects. These and other risks and uncertainties are described in more detail in the Company's filings with the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov) made from time to time, including Critical Path's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2001, and the Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 30, and June 30, 2002,all as may be amended from time to time.
Note to Editors: Critical Path and the Critical Path logo are the trademarks of Critical Path, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their holders.
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Critical Path Contact Information:
For Reporters:
Shane Dolgin
Public Relations
415.541.2661
shane.dolgin@criticalpath.net For Financial Analysis:
Mike Bishop
Investor Relations
415.541.2619
mike.bishop@criticalpath.net
Ernst van der Ploeg
Regional Sales Director
For Critical Path N therlands
+31 (0) 6 512 77060 phone
+31 (0) 6 105 48013 fax
A Global Leader in Digital Communications Software and Services