Press Release

Leading Integrator Teams with Network Attached Processing Innovator to Help UK Customers Increase Datacentre Capabilities and Decrease Total Cost of Ownership

Slough, Berkshire, UK – 18 April, 2006 – Azul Systems, Inc., the pioneer of the industry’s first network attached processing solution designed to unbound compute resources for transaction-intensive applications and services, such as those based on the Java™ or J2EE™ platform, today announced that it has signed Morse, the technology integration and services company, as its first UK channel partner. The joint marketing and channel relationship will target new and existing customers within the financial services and telecommunications sectors, allowing them to address the challenges of datacentre consolidation, ensure predictable service levels and optimise Java application performance and scalability.

Morse advises its customers on infrastructure and technology efficiency strategies that assess the true costs of services and applications and aid in the selection of adopting the right resources to deliver on customers’ service levels requirements and business needs. The Azul solution accelerates the ability for organisations to migrate to new architectures such as service-oriented architectures or shared services models, by enabling massive application scalability, improved system utilisation and simultaneously dramatically reducing operational and support costs. By partnering with Morse, Azul is poised to rapidly expand its market reach and in turn provide customers with the increased capabilities that drive new levels of competitive advantage.

“It’s well known that many Java applications are not optimised and thus require a great deal of processing power. Azul provides a strongly differentiated platform from which we can design, build and support new architectures to address the needs of the market,” commented Paul McCarthy, managing director, technology and integration, Morse. “Issues such as scalability, poor SLA compliance and the escalating costs of delivering applications are consistently raised by many businesses – Azul’s technology provides the ability to address these problems at a lower cost point.”

The partnership comes at a time when IT infrastructure costs are soaring. Space in the datacentre is at a premium and both power and cooling bills are steadily rising to the top of every CIOs priority list. It is vital that businesses reassess how they can efficiently utilise their current systems whilst avoiding costly “rip and replace” strategies. Infrastructure put in place today must be able to scale to and withstand the demands put upon it by the resource-hungry applications of today and finding an integrator with experience in every aspect of this change process is essential.

“We are very proud to announce that Morse has become our first UK channel partner,” said Syed Rizvi, managing director, Azul Systems UK. “Morse has world-class operations in the UK – the fact that they have adopted the Azul technology and are committed to providing complementary enterprise level sales and support around network attached processing provides real validation of the Azul answer to solving datacentre issues around cost and complexity. Together, we will enable customers to overcome the challenges of the modern datacentre faster and at a lower cost and risk in comparison to traditional systems.”

About Azul Systems
Azul Systems, Inc. has pioneered the industry's first network attached processing solution, designed to unbound compute resources for transaction-intensive applications and services, such as those based on the Java™ platform or Microsoft® .NET™ framework. Without application level modifications, binary compatibility requirements or operating system dependencies, this fundamentally new approach eliminates the need to capacity plan at the application level and dramatically lowers the cost and complexity associated with the traditional delivery of computing resources. More information on Azul Systems can be found at www.azulsystems.com.

About Morse plc
Morse is a technology, integration and services company providing solutions to clients who want to make their IT more flexible and better aligned with their business. Morse offers technology and services that include consultancy and project management, information and application integration, smart sourcing, service management and infrastructure efficiency. Established in 1983, Morse is listed on the London Stock Exchange, employs over 1800 people and has operations in the UK, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Ireland, South Africa, USA, Singapore and Malaysia. The company has evolved over the years through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions. More information on Morse can be found at www.morse.co.uk.

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 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.

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