Hewlett-Packard Co. and Critical Path Inc. announced a joint agreement on Thursday to provide worldwide managed messaging services to enterprise customers.
The carrier-class applications will be based on Critical Path’s messaging platform to be used on HP-UX and Linux-based servers.
The companies are gearing the message service towards three markets, including Fortune 2000 companies who want to replace, upgrade or extend their legacy e-mail systems; service providers who want to offer their customers bundled messaging services; and the small office/home office (SOHO) and small and medium enterprise (SME) markets. Both companies will market and sell the service.
Customers will be offered a suite of integrated applications that will include e-mail, wireless access, instant messaging (IM), group scheduling, personal address books, registered mail, Internet file storage and anti-spam and antivirus protection.
HP will initially deploy messaging solutions in its data centres in North America, Europe and Asia. Multi-lingual customer service will also be supplied to Critical Path by HP. The standard-based messaging offered by Critical Path interoperates with Microsoft’s Outlook and is designed to integrate and coexist with Microsoft Exchange, providing choice to customers.
“Today’s IT organization must be able to provide a variety of messaging options to its users with a focus on service quality, reliability and cost effectiveness,” said Maurene Caplan Grey, a Stamford, Conn.-based research director with Gartner Inc.
The managed messaging service is currently available, according to Shane Dolgin, a San Francisco-based spokesperson for Critical Path. The suite of integrated applications listed above will be available to Canadian customers including service providers, enterprises and SOHO customers beginning in the first quarter of 2003.
Critical Path can be found at http://www.cp.net.
HP can be found at http://www.hp.com.
