AstraZeneca Uses Critical Path Software to Drive Personalization of Portals and ''People-Aware'' Applications from a Single System.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 23, 2004 Leading International Pharmaceutical Company Boosts Security, Cuts Costs and Accelerates Application Development with Critical Path Meta-Directory Critical Path, Inc. (Nasdaq:CPTH), a global provider of identity management and messaging software and services, today announced that AstraZeneca, one of the top five pharmaceutical and healthcare services companies in the world, is using Critical Path's identity management software to create a global framework for providing accurate, integrated "people" data to a wide range of applications and services. The Critical Path Meta-Directory integrates AstraZeneca's human resources The fancy word for "people." The human resources department within an organization, years ago known as the "personnel department," manages the administrative aspects of the employees. systems in multiple countries with email, telephony and other operational systems to handle complex transitions as its over 50,000 employees and contractors join, leave, transfer, or change roles. Critical Path's software consolidates contact, location, and other types of information about each individual, and ensures that the data are only ever modified by properly authorized applications. As a result, AstraZeneca now has simpler, automated procedures for maintaining crucial "people data," enabling the company to personalize applications, improve security and cut operational costs. In addition, the accurate, integrated identity data are made available to systems throughout the company via standard, well-understood technologies, reducing the time and costs needed for developing new applications. Like most large organizations, AstraZeneca has a heterogeneous environment Using hardware and system software from different vendors. Organizations often use computers, operating systems and databases from a variety of vendors. Contrast with homogeneous environment. made up of a diverse range of applications and systems. To ensure that their identity infrastructure could grow and adapt in such a dynamic environment, AstraZeneca looked for an extensible solution that was based upon open standards Specifications for hardware and software that are developed by a standards organization or a consortium involved in supporting a standard. Available to the public for developing compliant products, open standards imply "open systems;" that an existing component in a system can be replaced . The modular architecture of the Critical Path software, combined with its broad range of built-in connectors to over 70 applications and the proven expertise of Critical Path's professional services (job) professional services - A department of a supplier providing consultancy and programming manpower for the supplier's products. organization, enabled a flexible solution to be deployed quickly and successfully. "Creating a robust foundation for managing identities that can be used for multiple initiatives is a key challenge facing large organizations today," said Bernard Harguindeguy, executive vice president and general manager of identity management at Critical Path. "With the Critical Path Meta-Directory, AstraZeneca is able to solve immediate, pressing problems now in a way that allows them to easily address additional issues in the future." Critical Path's Meta-Directory includes built-in connectors for wide variety of business systems -- including directories from the industry's major vendors; databases from Oracle, Sybase, and IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) ; enterprise applications such as SAP HR, Lotus Notes Messaging and groupware software from IBM Lotus that was introduced in 1989 for OS/2 and later expanded to Windows, Mac, Unix, NetWare, AS/400 and S/390. Notes provides e-mail, document sharing, workflow, group discussions and calendaring and scheduling. , and Microsoft Exchange Messaging and groupware software for Windows from Microsoft. Exchange Server is an Internet-compliant e-mail system that runs under Windows NT/2000 and Windows Server 2003. It can be accessed by Web browsers, the Exchange client, versions of Outlook and the earlier Windows Inbox. ; as well as IBM RACF (Resource Access Control Facility) IBM mainframe security software introduced in 1976 that verifies user ID and password and controls access to authorized files and resources. RACF - Resource Access Control Facility mainframe security and other operating system operating system (OS) Software that controls the operation of a computer, directs the input and output of data, keeps track of files, and controls the processing of computer programs. platforms. In addition, its support for industry-standard interfaces such as Java, Perl, XML XML in full Extensible Markup Language. Markup language developed to be a simplified and more structural version of SGML. It incorporates features of HTML (e.g., hypertext linking), but is designed to overcome some of HTML's limitations. and SOAP provides easy extensibility and frees organizations from having to learn proprietary scripting languages in order to integrate their own applications and data. As a result, the Critical Path Meta-Directory allows identity management solutions to be deployed more rapidly, with significantly lower upfront and ongoing costs. About AstraZeneca AstraZeneca is a major international healthcare business engaged in the research, development, manufacture and marketing of prescription pharmaceuticals and the supply of healthcare services. It is one of the top five pharmaceutical companies in the world with healthcare sales of over $17.8 billion and leading positions in sales of gastrointestinal, oncology, cardiovascular, neuroscience neu·ro·sci·ence n. Any of the sciences, such as neuroanatomy and neurobiology, that deal with the nervous system. neuroscience the embryology, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology of the nervous system. and respiratory products. AstraZeneca is listed in the Dow Jones Dow Jones the best known of several U.S. indexes of movements in price on Wall Street. [Am. Hist.: Payton, 202] See : Finance Sustainability Index (Global and European) as well as the FTSE FTSE A company that specializes in index calculation. Although not part of a stock exchange, co-owners include the London Stock Exchange and the Financial Times. Notes: The FTSE is similar to Standard & Poor's in the United States. 4Good Index. More information on AstraZeneca is available at www.astrazeneca.com. About Critical Path, Inc. Critical Path, Inc. (Nasdaq:CPTH) is a global provider of identity management and messaging software and services, headquartered in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden . More information can be found at www.criticalpath.net/solutions/enterprise/. Forward-Looking Statements: This press release contains forward-looking statements by the Company and its executives regarding 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, the ability of our products and services to meet the business needs of our customers, the market for products and services like ours and the performance of our senior management in achieving strategic goals. 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 Form 10-K A report required by the SEC from exchange-listed companies that provides for annual disclosure of certain financial information. Form 10-K See 10-K. for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2002,and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q Form 10-Q See 10-Q. for the fiscal quarters ended March 31, June 30 and September 30, 2003, as may be amended from time to time, and all subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov). The company makes no commitment to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances after the date any such statement is made. 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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