Coimbra, Portugal, February 8th, 2007 – Critical Links, an international networking technology company, today announced it was selected as a nominee for the European ICT Prize, the most prestigious prize for innovative ICT products, organized by the European Commission.

This year, the European Comission received the highest number of applications in the history of the European ICT Prize: 450 applications from 30 countries. The proposals were evaluated by independent experts from 16 European countries, nominated by Euro-CASE, who selected 70 Prize Nominees.

According to the organisation “Applications undergo a thorough, highly competitive evaluation procedure. For the companies selected, nomination for the Prize is an endorsement of their technological and business potential. It boosts their commercial prospects and helps attract finance for their business ventures.”

"We are honoured to be among the Top 70 innovative ICT companies in Europe", commented Mr. João Carreira, CEO of Critical Links. “Critical Links’ technology enables the quick deployment of converged Business Gateways targeted at the booming SMB managed services market. The European wide recognition that comes from being selected as a Prize Nominee will accelerate access to finance, markets and partnerships, and will enhance the visibility, credibility and future business prospects for our company.”

Critical Links is an international networking software company and provider of edgeBOX, a converged multi-function device or business gateway targeted at SMBs and Enterprise Branch Offices. edgeBOX software is the ideal foundation for converged all-in-one, remotely manageable networking devices for SMEs, a market that is expected to be worth 1,7 Billion € in 2010 (InStat). edgeBOX incorporates all the latest in-demand technologies such as VoIP, IP-PBX, WiFi, VPNs, security, NAC, QoS and can be used as a web server, email server and storage device.

edgeBOX has also been identified as a key player in the emerging “Business Gateway” market by leading analyst house InStat and won the Best Broadband Appliance award at the World Broadband Forum in 2005. It was selected as a finalist by IDG Communications’ Techworld for its 2006 “Small Business Product of the Year”, and recently won  INTERNET TELEPHONY® Magazine’s 2006 Product of the Year Award.

About Critical Links

Critical Links (www.critical-links.com) is an international networking software company and provider of edgeBOX, a converged multi-function device or business gateway targeted at SMBs and Enterprise Branch Offices. edgeBOX is available in a wide range of scalable hardware platforms, including standard servers, and has the best feature to price ratio in the market, making it the ideal choice for cost savvy SMBs. edgeBOX typically replaces 4-7 single-function devices required to deliver an equivalent set of services, fully remotely managed, with significantly lower TCO. Telecom Service Providers and Managed Services Providers offer edgeBOX as a service to their SMB customers.

Critical Links is a wholly owned subsidiary of Critical Software SA, established in 1998, with over 100 employees and a presence in the UK, USA, and Portugal. The company is CMMI Level 3 compliant and has a reputation for producing mission and business critical networking and telecoms solutions for the telecoms, public sector, industry, aerospace and defence markets, with customers such as Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Infineon Technologies, NASA, EADS and ESA.

For more information:

Carlos Taveira; Email: carlos-taveira@criticalsoftware.com