Critical Path Agrees To Acquire Leading Internet-Application Service Provider.SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 23, 1999-- Acquisition Provides Critical Path with Leading-Edge Calendaring and Resource Scheduling Services Accessible Anytime, Anywhere Critical Path, Inc. (Nasdaq:CPTH), a leading provider of business-to-business Internet messaging solutions, today announced it has signed a definitive acquisition agreement to acquire Amplitude Software Corp., a leading provider of Internet calendar and resource scheduling solutions. Critical Path will incorporate Amplitude's leading-edge calendaring and resource scheduling suite with its proprietary email outsourcing solution to offer enterprises, Internet portals and Internet service providers Internet service provider (ISP) Company that provides Internet connections and services to individuals and organizations. For a monthly fee, ISPs provide computer users with a connection to their site (see data transmission), as well as a log-in name and password. (ISPs) an integrated messaging platform with increased functionality, ease-of-use, information access and scalability. Amplitude, founded in 1996 and based 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 , builds Web-based business solutions to address resource sharing and calendaring demands across an enterprise. By leveraging the Internet, the Internet, the, international computer network linking together thousands of individual networks at military and government agencies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, industrial and financial corporations of all sizes, and commercial enterprises suite of applications unites employees, customers and partners and allows them to benefit from improved communications and collaboration, optimized resource utilization and dramatic bottom line savings. The software is built on 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 and is interoperable with other enterprise databases, operating systems Operating systems can be categorized by technology, ownership, licensing, working state, usage, and by many other characteristics. In practice, many of these groupings may overlap. , and directory stores in order to allow an organization to take advantage of their existing IT investments. Amplitude's more than 250 customers represent a wide range of industries and include Chevron, Cisco Systems “Cisco” redirects here. For other uses, see Cisco (disambiguation). Cisco System,Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO, HKSE: 4333 ) is an American multinational corporation with 54,000 employees and annual revenue of US $28.48 billion as of 2006. , Lucent, KPMG KPMG Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler (accounting firm) KPMG Kaiser Permanente Medical Group KPMG Keiner Prüft Mehr Genau (German) KPMG Kommen Prüfen Meckern Gehen , Macy's and Pharmacia Upjohn. "Critical Path is dedicated to staying at the forefront of technology and to quickly bringing to market a complete suite of solutions that satisfies the full range of email and messaging demands presented by customers and prospects," said Doug Hickey, Critical Path's president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. . "Amplitude has developed a compelling suite of products based on the Internet allowing for maximum scalability with unparalleled performance, while also allowing users ubiquitous access via any standard Web browser The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. . We believe that Amplitude's calendar and resource sharing solutions add a critical layer of value on top of our formidable messaging platform for the enterprise and Internet markets." "Amplitude has developed some of the most robust and powerful calendaring and resource sharing applications," said Randall Sosnick, Amplitude's president and CEO. "We believe these services combined with Critical Path's patent-pending technology will create a powerful messaging solution that will benefit current and future customers. Amplitude is looking forward to joining the Critical Path family and is committed to the success of Critical Path." Expanded Services to Meet Customer Needs As a means to support demands of its broad customer base, Critical Path is developing a full spectrum of messaging solutions to complement its core email hosting solution. Services such as calendaring extend Critical Path's relationships with current customers, attract new customers and differentiate Critical Path in the email service See Internet e-mail service. provider market. These services also allow Critical Path to target large corporations through its expanded "midsource" strategy. (SEE RELATED MIDSOURCE RELEASE) This strategy enables enterprise customers to take advantage of new messaging services without altering their existing IT infrastructure. The Gartner Group (company) Gartner Group - One of the biggest IT industry research firms. Address: Connecticut, USA. projects the high-end application service provider (ASP) market will reach $2 billion worldwide by 2003, rising an average 91% annually. "With some 400 billion emails generated in the US in 1999, the market for providing email and messaging solutions is exploding," said Steve Robins, Internet analyst at the Yankee Group (the Yankee Group, Boston, MA, www.yankeegroup.com) A major market research, analysis and consulting firm founded in 1970 by Howard Anderson. It provides general consulting and strategic planning in the computer and communications field. . "Historically, corporations have invested heavily in infrastructure and have been hesitant to outsource critical business functions such as messaging. Now, we see enterprises beginning to release one aspect of messaging at a time. Critical Path is positioning itself to take advantage of this shift by expanding their services." Web portals See portal. and ISPs are increasingly using email and messaging solutions to differentiate their service offerings and attract new and retain current customers. By offering expanded services, Critical Path provides Web portals and ISPs more opportunities to synch up the needs of their users and the sales goals of their advertisers. Outsourcing and midsourcing applications provide many benefits to customers such as access to the most advanced email and messaging systems Software that provides an electronic mail delivery system. It is made up of the following functional components, which may be packaged together or independently. Mail User Agent available, while reducing the typical infrastructure and support costs, faster time to market, and scalability to meet business growth, giving businesses and ISPs of all sizes an alternative to purchasing, deploying and managing messaging applications internally. Critical Path plans to extend its services by offering other premium services such as unified messaging Having access to e-mail, voice mail and faxes via a common computer application or by telephone. For example, unified messaging may send faxes and digitized voice mail to a mail server that turns them into e-mail attachments. , certified delivery, advanced directory services, permanent archiving and instant messaging Exchanging text messages in real time between two or more people logged into a particular instant messaging (IM) service. Instant messaging is more interactive than e-mail because messages are sent immediately, whereas e-mail messages can be queued up in a mail server for seconds or . The Amplitude Advantage Amplitude has pioneered enterprise Web-based applications See Web application. which provide businesses the benefits of increased productivity, optimized resource utilization and dramatic bottom line savings. Amplitudes calendaring and resource scheduling suite consists of the following products: EventCenter(R) -- Calendaring Solution EventCenter is an Internet calendar solution that has broad reaching appeal to both the enterprise and Internet market. In the enterprise space EventCenter is designed for executives who oversee many costly and complex events and who seek a unified means of communicating and coordinating these events across their enterprise. EventCenter creates a single source of event information to streamline planning and coordination process, reduce paperwork and improve communication across the enterprise. For portals and ISPs, EventCenter delivers the calendaring solution already experienced by Amplitude's enterprise customers to individual users. Amplitude has a strategic partnership with Lycos, Inc. (Nasdaq:LCOS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) A technology used to make microdisplays for rear-projection TVs and head-mounted displays (HMDs). Each LCoS chip hosts a grayscale LCD shutter sandwiched between a cover glass and a mirror. ), the second most visited hub on the Internet, to provide their users with personal or community calendars. The significant and unique benefit of using Amplitude's calendaring technology is that users have a single calendar to view for their personal appointments, community events, and public activity calendars. Reserve(TM) -- Shared Resource Sharing a peripheral device (disk, printer, etc.) among several users. For example, a file server and laser printer in a LAN are shared resources. Contrast with shared logic. Scheduling Solution Designed to provide real estate and facilities executives managing millions of dollars in shared resources with an efficient means of scheduling resources across geographically dispersed locations. Reserve provides a standardized means of automated resource scheduling, as well as detailed reporting on usage. It eliminates double-bookings while increasing productivity and resource utilization, leading to reduced expenditures and a significantly higher return on assets Return on assets (ROA) Indicator of profitability. Determined by dividing net income for the past 12 months by total average assets. Result is shown as a percentage. ROA can be decomposed into return on sales (net income/sales) multiplied by asset utilization (sales/assets). . Mobilize(TM) -- Alternative Workspace Management Solution Mobilize automates the reservation and coordination processes for shared workspaces. Using a web browser mobile personnel select and locate their workspace, route phone lines and arrange for needed equipment. Mobilize creates a convenient and standardized way to make workspace reservations, increasing efficiency of office space, increasing productivity and eliminating of scheduling conflicts, leading to reduced real estate and equipment expenditures and a significant return on assets. About Critical Path, Inc. Critical Path, Inc. (Nasdaq:CPTH) is a leading provider of business-to-business Internet messaging solutions for corporations, Internet service providers (ISPs), Web hosting Making a Web site available on the Internet. Many ISPs host a few personal Web pages for an individual at no additional cost above the monthly service fee, but the address is subordinate to the ISP; for example, www.friendlyisp.com/pat_smith. companies, and Web portals. Critical Path has built an industry-leading global infrastructure with data centers connected to key Internet exchange points See IXP and NAP. , and currently reaches millions of end-users through its partnership agreements. Critical Path provides reliable, secure, and scalable email, and a flexible suite of enhanced messaging services Abbreviated as EMS, an application-level extension to Short Message Service (SMS) for cellular phones available on GSM, TDMA and CDMA networks. An EMS enabled mobile phone can send and receive messages that have special text formatting (such as bold or italic), animations, to partners such as E
rade, Network Solutions, U S West, Sprint, and
AOL/ICQ. Critical Path is headquartered in San Francisco, California,
with offices in locations nationwide and in Germany and the UK. More
information on Critical Path can be found at www.cp.net.
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.
This press release contains forward-looking statements. These
statements may be identified by the use of words such as "believes,"
"expects," "anticipates," "intends," and "plans." Actual results may
differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking
statements. These forward-looking statements are based on current
expectations that are subject to risks and uncertainties, including
those relating to the possible inability to complete the acquisition
as scheduled or at all. These risks and uncertainties include those
that exist with Critical Path's and Amplitude's respective business
operations. These risks and uncertainties also include those that
relate to the proposed acquisition including risks that integration of
the operations, technologies and products of the combined companies
might not occur as anticipated, that management attention might be
diverted from day-to-day business activities of both companies during
the period through the closing and thereafter, and that greater than
normal employee turnover might occur prior to and after the closing.
Whether or not the proposed acquisition closes, actual results of
Critical Path, including Critical Path's results of operations, may
differ materially from historical results. For a more detailed
description of the risks related to Critical Path, please refer to
Critical Path's prospectus dated June 1, 1999, which has been filed
with the SEC.
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