CTI², which produces messaging solutions for communications providers, and Critical Path (CPTH), one of the leading companies in the e-mail market, announced today that they had signed a collaboration agreement. Under the agreement, CTI² will be able to provide advanced value-added services adapted to the needs of communications providers and capable of being sold in a modular fashion.

CTI² will sell Critical Path’s mail server to its customers as part of its value-added services platform. The two companies intend to broaden the cooperation between them and offer the integrated system to the strategic partners and distributors of each of them. Critical Path currently provides value-added services on its e-mail platform. The link-up with CTI² is intended to provide a higher-grade joint solution.

The advantage for CTI² lies in the fact that Critical Path has about 1,000 customers, among them enterprises and telecommunications operators of all kinds (fixed-line, mobile, and Internet). Collaboration with Critical Path will expose CTI² to these customers. In fact, one of the most important points in the agreement is the considerable exposure CTI² will receive to the enterprise market.

The business model underlying the agreement is shared revenue. For example, in cases where CTI² leads a unified messaging deal, it will transfer to Critical Path payments from the customer for the electronic mail license and other Critical Path products. This model enables Critical Path to receive substantial revenue from each deal in which CTI² is involved. CTI² has thus created an interest on Critical Path’s part to invest effort in marketing its product. The agreement therefore brings extremely important marketing advantages to CTI².

It should be pointed out that Critical Path also has a collaboration agreement with CTI²’s rival Comverse, but the revenue model in that agreement is different. Comverse paid Critical Path an initial sum for the licenses, but Critical Path is not likely to receive material additional revenue from Comverse from each deal.

Globes: Boaz Gruener, vice president of marketing at CTI², how will the collaboration with Critical Path work in practice?

Gruener: “with the people at Critical Path, we defined an integrated services package, aimed at Critical Path’s customers. This package will facilitate the upgrading of electronic mail boxes to enhanced voicemail boxes or to a full unified messaging system, depending on what the customer wants.

“In the future, the two companies intend to provide joint hosting services. This service too is expected to work on the basis of a revenue sharing model.

“In addition, Critical Path recently announced a new product called Critical Move, aimed at enterprises. The two companies intend to market jointly to enterprises, service packages that integrate CTI² products with Critical Move.

“CTI² and Critical Path currently have two customers in common (Bezeq and another, H.G.) These two customers will serve as a shop window for showing potential customers the advantages of the joint solution. The intention is to duplicate the Bezeq model in other place.

“Apart from the e-mail server, we intend to integrate into CTI²’s platform additional Critical Path products, among them classified directories, an electronic diary, an address book, a notifications server, and, in the future, instant messages as well.”

How does this fit in with your cooperation agreements with other companies?

“CTI² has strategic cooperation agreements with most of the large hardware companies and integrators, chief among them HP and IBM. This new agreement enables us to form a triple alliance comprising CTI², HP, and Critical Path. Incidentally, Critical Path has a parallel cooperation agreement with HP. In this alliance, HP will supply the hardware, the integration, the services, and the support; Critical Path will provide the e-mail servers, the accompanying products, and the support for these products, and both of them will help with marketing and access to their customers. CTI² brings with it the value-added message services platform, and leads the sales effort. The outstanding advantage of this alliance is that none of the three companies competes with the others.

“Moreover, the alliance with CTI² enables HP-Critical Path to contend on an equal footing with other giants in the value-added services field. Until now, in added-value services tenders, you would tend to find Comverse versus IBM and Openwave. Now, HP and Critical Path will bid in these tenders with CTI²’s system. This still does not rule out the possibility of CTI² bidding in the same tenders together with IBM and with Openwave.”

Does the fact that IBM and HP are competitors not present you with a problem?

“No. We work with both IBM and HP, and there’s no contradiction here. In cases in which IBM has the better connection with the customer, we go with them. In cases in which HP will lead the deal, we go with HP. In tenders in which both of them bid, there is nothing to prevent us participating in the tender twice: with HP, and at the same time with IBM. This actually greatly enhances our chances of winning the contract.”

Under the collaboration agreement, CTI² and Critical Path will sell, jointly, advanced messaging, from voice mailbox and enhanced e-mail services to a full unified messaging service. In addition, each company will distribute the other’s products, and will offer solutions that leverage the technologies of each of them.