Critical Path Appoints Patricia Hume as Vice President, Partners and Channels.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 22, 2002

Former Lotus and IBM Executive to Draw Upon Extensive Experience

Managing Alliances and Partnerships to Expand CP Market Presence

Through Channels Program

Critical Path, Inc. (Nasdaq:CPTH), a global leader in digital communication solutions, today announced the appointment of Patricia Hume as vice president, partners and channels. Hume will be charged with expanding the partnership and channel programs to market and deploy Critical Path's Communication Platform through systems integrators, independent software vendors, and hardware and device manufacturers. Hume will report directly to Critical Path's president, Pierre Van Beneden.

"Critical Path is serious about extending the application of our Communication Platform deeper into the global enterprise market, and Patricia Hume brings a remarkable record of leading successful global alliance programs at such respected companies as IBM, and VerticalNet," said Van Beneden. "Her expertise in developing and managing worldwide channel programs will be a key factor in our continued growth and success within the global marketplace. Critical Path's Communication Platform provides ideal advantages for alliance partners based upon its reliability, scalability, total cost of ownership, and its established reputation."

In her extensive career, Hume has held numerous management and senior management positions in the areas of marketing, sales, channels, partnerships and strategic alliances. At VerticalNet, she served as president of VerticalNet Markets, where she oversaw 70 industry-specific B2B marketplace businesses and managed multiple departments, including development, sales, marketing, product management, support and channels. Prior to assuming the role of president, Hume served as the senior vice president and general manager of VerticalNet's Microsoft relationship.

"Critical Path has done a tremendous job of building a worldwide market presence through superior service to carriers, service providers and government institutions," said Hume. "As we expand into new markets, I look forward to developing strategic alliances with companies that are global leaders, enabling us to meet customers' needs more efficiently. By collaborating with industry leaders, we will offer all of the components of the Critical Path Communications Platform by clearly targeting those elements that complement our partners' strengths, such as our meta directory, which has great value for our potential partners."

At Lotus Development Corp., Hume served as the global vice president of indirect sales, where she managed the global strategic alliances team along with all revenues that came from non-direct sales, including relationships with 22,000 Lotus business partners and the programs that supported them. Additionally, at Lotus, Hume served as the general manager of messaging and collaboration, where she was responsible for developing and executing Lotus's messaging business strategy. At IBM, Hume served as the global alliance executive responsible for all Lotus strategic partnerships. Prior to this assignment, she served as the director of the IBM/Lotus merger. Following the acquisition, she managed the integration of the two companies.

About Critical Path, Inc.

Critical Path, Inc. (Nasdaq:CPTH) is a global leader in communication technology and complete messaging solutions for wireless and wireline carriers, service providers and corporations through its integrated platform of messaging applications and directory infrastructure. 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 http://www.cp.net./.

Forward-Looking Statements 

This press release contains forward-looking statements by the Company and its executives regarding expected future business, financial and product performance, including the Company's statements regarding endorsements of our product and services offerings by our customers, the refocusing of our operations throughout the world, the performance of senior executives in meeting strategic goals, and the market for outsourced services like ours. The words and expressions "look forward to," "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 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, 2000, as amended, and the Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended September 30, 2001, June 30, 2001 and March 30, 2001, 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.