Azul Systems Next-Generation Compute Appliances Deliver Business Results with Breakthrough Performance for Business Critical Java Applications

Azul Systems, the award- winning leader of enterprise server appliances for business critical Java(TM) applications, today announced the general availability of its next-generation appliance product family that assures performance consistency and dramatic scalability for the most demanding applications (Details available in today's press release at http://azulsystems.com/press/120406_world_record.htm). Azul Systems today also announced that British Telecom (BT) has become the latest customer to quickly achieve significant business results by deploying Azul Compute Appliances to run a major business application, and additionally announced that Azul and BEA have extended their long-term strategic partnership to include Azul certification and licensing for all WebLogic Platform products. With this news, Azul solidifies its position as the number one platform for business critical Java processing, making it easier for enterprises to deliver services to market faster, more consistently, and more profitably.

"Azul continues to build defining market momentum. In just a few short years, we've shown the industry that we can address some of the most long standing Java pain points and ensure consistent performance for some of the most demanding applications that other server technologies in the industry simply cannot address," said Stephen DeWitt, president and chief executive officer of Azul Systems. "Today's announcements demonstrate how Azul is changing the game in enterprise computing, and customers are seeing for themselves the tremendous impact of this new approach."

Addressing an Unmet Market Need

According to IDC, sales of enterprise servers to run Java-based workloads exceeded $11.2 billion in 2005 and are expected to continue to grow rapidly, fueled by the explosive growth in Java programmers and the use of Java in enterprise applications. However, business critical, transaction-intensive applications such as those found at financial institutions, telcos, and e- commerce sites require significantly large usable memory and management capabilities, which alternative server platforms simply cannot efficiently address.

"Cost-effectively managing the growth we are experiencing with our benefits administration offerings requires scalability and performance of business critical Java applications more than traditional servers alone can deliver," said Barry Strasnick, CIO, at CitiStreet. "The new Vega 2-based Azul Compute Appliance delivers the necessary capacity as a shared network service, allowing us to meet the scalability, reliability and memory needs of Java applications critical to delivering high-quality service to our business customers."

"With innovation from Azul, enterprises can extend their use of Java (J2EE) platforms and develop new performance and business critical workloads necessary to grow their businesses. Customers deploying business critical Java applications have had challenges effectively scaling their applications, and the new Vega 2-based Azul Compute Appliances are designed to help simplify this," said Matt Eastwood, program vice president, Enterprise Platforms Group at IDC, "Application performance consistency is key to service profitability and with considerable scalability and hardware-assisted garbage collection, Azul appliances deliver the consistency assurance needed by today's enterprise customers."

Widespread Customer and Partner Adoption

Over the last twelve months, Azul has successfully delivered solutions to challenging business applications at marquis customers such as Credit Suisse, Bell Canada, TrueCredit, Selectica, Pegasus Solutions, NBX, BlueChip Expert and many others. Adding to that momentum, Azul today announced that BT has chosen Azul to support its B-to-B gateway, and that BEA has expanded its existing strategic partnership with Azul.

-- Azul Helps BT Respond To Massive Increase In Business Volumes: With the

UK telco industry undergoing deregulation, BT has opened up its

networks to give third-party providers reliable access to existing BT

networks. To do so, BT created the world's largest B-to-B gateway, and

chose Azul as the only platform which met their service level and

transaction volume requirements. For full details around the BT

customer engagement, view the press release at

http://azulsystems.com/press/120406_bt.htm.

-- Azul Systems And BEA Systems Announce Multi-Year Partnership;Extending

Benefits Of Certification To Weblogic Platform: Azul and BEA today

announced a long-term strategic partnership extending the two

companies' existing partnership to include certification and licensing

for all WebLogic Platform products. This partnership creates the

preeminent solution for joint customers to deploy large-scale,

enterprise-wide service-oriented architectures (SOAs) that meet the

most rigorous service-level requirements. For full details around the

BEA partnership, view the press release at

http://azulsystems.com/press/120406_bea.htm.

About Azul Systems

Azul Systems is a global provider of enterprise server appliances that delivers compute and memory resources as a shared network service for transaction-intensive applications, such as those built on the Java(TM) platform. Our family of Azul Compute Appliances enables transparent, massively scalable infrastructure that supports the business priorities of today's most demanding enterprise environments and delivers increased capabilities, capacity and utilization at a fraction of the cost of traditional computing models. More information on Azul Systems can be found at http://www.azulsystems.com.

Legal Notices

Azul Systems and Azul are registered trademarks, and the Azul arch logo is a trademark of Azul Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All Java based trademarks and their logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Other marks are the property of their respective owners and are used here only for identification purposes.