SAN FRANCISCO (June 19, 2002) – Critical Path, Inc. (Nasdaq: CPTH), the global leader in Internet communications, today announced updates to two products that will make the deployment of identity management solutions more flexible and extensible. New versions of the company’s meta-directory and directory provide a crucial foundation for advanced automated provisioning and security applications, including single sign-on, public key infrastructure (PKI) and access control. These releases combine the industry’s broadest range of out-of-the-box connectivity with standards-based Java and Web Services modules that accelerate and simplify the delivery of large scale automated provisioning and data management solutions.
Automating provisioning is crucial to adding, managing or deleting the various user profiles and other identity information scattered throughout hundreds of directories, databases and applications typically deployed by enterprises, carriers and service providers. Critical Path’s products ensure that this data is kept accurate and up-to-date and is automatically distributed everywhere it is needed – a vital component of corporate security. This also allows organizations to consolidate information and avoid costly inconsistencies and errors.
“The CP Meta-Directory Server has been a critical foundation for some of the largest Web single-sign-on deployments on Netegrity’s Secure Relationship Management platform,” said Bill Bartow, vice president and general manager of the Access Control and Identity Management Business Unit for Netegrity (Nasdaq: NETE). According to Mike Neuenschwander, senior analyst at Burton Group, “Many aspects of Web services depend on reliable, up-to-date profile information stored in highly secure directories that are connected to other sources of profile data. The success of Web services will rely upon basic usability. How reliable are your authentication services? How up to date is user authorization data? Meta-directory technology is key to normalizing distributed identities, and enabling directory services addresses this issue head-on.”
How the software works
Critical Path’s software is unique in the breadth of data sources it supports. The company provides the industry’s widest range of pre-built “connectors” (software modules that enable the meta-directory to communicate with individual data sources), allowing commonly used directories, databases and applications to be quickly integrated. In addition, for legacy or proprietary data sources, Critical Path provides toolkits that allow custom connectors to be easily written in Java, XML and Perl.
The meta-directory’s strength lies in its ability to gather data from unconnected but related sources, and create relationships between related data sets. This process removes redundancies and inconsistencies across data and consolidates the information into a single, accurate view for each user. This information is stored in Critical Path’s massively scalable, fault-tolerant directory software where it can easily be analyzed, managed or accessed by any number of enterprise applications. Changes received from any individual data source or made through security and administrative applications are then distributed back out to all of the systems the changes would affect. Critical Path’s software ensures that the information is always kept consistent and accurate, even if a data sources fails during an update.
CP Directory Server 4.1 offers advanced integration and administration
The new CP Directory Server 4.1 and its CP Business Continuity Server? -- Critical Path’s automated, fault-tolerant directory option -- enable organizations to handle rapid growth by more easily distributing and managing user profiles and security credentials across many different locations. In addition, this release provides enhanced directory schema management that simplifies the integration with third-party security solutions, such as Netegrity’s Secure Relationship Management platform.
CP Meta-Directory Server 3.3 offers unprecedented flexibility and extensibility
CP Meta-Directory Server 3.3 makes it much easier for organizations to integrate legacy data systems and establish policies and business processes for automatically distributing identity data. It is unique in its breadth of pre-built connectors and its support for industry-standard languages such as Java, Perl, XML and DSML (see below) for connecting to applications and data sources. This frees organizations from having to learn proprietary scripting languages, enabling them to deploy identity management solutions more rapidly and significantly lowering both upfront and ongoing costs.
Integrating with Web services through XML and DSML
CP Meta-Directory Server 3.3 is the only meta-directory that natively supports version 2.0 of the Directory Services Markup Language (DSMLv2). This extension of XML allows different directory formats to be expressed in a common way that can be shared with a broad range of services. With DSMLv2, customers and partners can integrate existing XML data sources by creating custom mappings using commonly available XSLT tools. The new XML, DSML and other connectors lay the essential groundwork that will bring reliable data access and management to Web services applications.
About Critical Path, Inc.
Critical Path, Inc. (Nasdaq: CPTH) delivers software and services that maximize the value of Internet communications. The company provides messaging and collaboration 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. 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 with offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. More information on Critical Path can be found at www.cp.net.
Forward Looking Statements:
This press release contains forward-looking statements by the Company and others regarding endorsements of and performance of our products and services, including our customers’ and partners’ testimonials, our belief as to the ability of our products and technology to enable cost-savings, security, scalability and reliability and the market for outsourced services like ours. The words “will,” “expect,” “plan,” “believe,” “seek,” “strive for,” “anticipate,” “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 technology, the competitive, emerging and changing nature of the market for our products and services, our ability to deliver on our sales and strategic objectives, the ability of our technology and our competitors’ technologies to address customer requirements and 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, as may be amended and in effect from time to time.
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Critical Path and the Critical Path logo are trademarks of Critical Path, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their holders.
Contact Information:
For Reporters:
For Investors:
McGrath/Power PR
Critical Path, Inc.
Roger Fortier
Mike Bishop
(408) 727-0351
(415) 541-2619
Rogerf@mcgrathpower.com
mike.bishop@cp.net
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