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April 30, 2012

Azul Systems® Announces OEM Agreement with OptionsCity for High-Performance Trading and Market-Making Platforms

SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 30, 2012 — Azul Systems, Inc., the award-winning leader in Java runtime scalability, announced today that it has signed an OEM agreement with Chicago, IL-based OptionsCity Software, a financial technology company that provides real-time electronic trading solutions on the world’s leading derivatives markets. OptionsCity will integrate Azul’s Zing into Freeway, its server-based, multi-asset algorithmic trading platform, as well as Metro, its fully-configurable, high-performance market making and electronic trading platform. This agreement aligns with OptionsCity’s goal to deliver the lowest latency across its trading platforms, which recently broke the 100 micro-second barrier for round trip execution.

Zing is a 100% Java-compatible native Java Virtual Machine (JVM) optimized for the Linux operating system that delivers the best memory management in the industry. The Zing JVM features continuous low-latency operation while supporting very large numbers of CPU cores and hundreds of GBytes of memory. Unlike all other commercially available JVMs, Zing makes use of highly optimized compilers as well as Azul’s Continuously Concurrent Compacting Collector (C4) technology, implementing a pauseless garbage collection algorithm ensuring that only Zing allows enterprise developers to create and deploy new in-memory applications without risking the problematic performance artifacts caused by traditional Java garbage collectors.

OptionsCity’s award-winning Metro platform creates a distinctive edge by enabling traders to have full control over trading, safety, and risk management. Metro’s intuitive interface provides options traders with a powerful solution that has a dynamic quoting engine, mitigates risk substantially, and lowers high-scale costs.  Newly launched Freeway is a fast and powerful server-based trading platform designed for quick development and deployment of custom algorithmic trading strategies.

Built on Linux, OptionsCity’s server-based software stack delivers a compelling advantage for traders in the performance-sensitive derivatives industry. With the added advantage of Zing, the OptionsCity Metro and Freeway platforms can take advantage of even more robust, customized models, more sophisticated algorithms, as well as ensuring that the risk of Java-based garbage collection pauses is eliminated. Better algorithms, more data closer to the trader, and predictable low-latency operation together provide OptionsCity’s customers with a compelling performance advantage.

“OptionsCity is in a unique position to provide ultra-low latency trading solutions in this fast-changing environment and this requires continuous performance optimizations,” remarked Hazem Dawani, OptionsCity CEO. “We are pleased to integrate the Zing JVM as part of these ongoing efforts and are confident that the benefits will be recognized by our customers.”

“Zing was designed and optimized for high-value applications where predictable performance is essential,” said Scott Sellers, Azul Systems president and CEO. “By delivering ultra-low-latency Java and Scala performance for Metro and Freeway, Zing creates new value and new capabilities for OptionsCity customers.  We are excited about our partnership with OptionsCity and the benefits it brings to the trading community.”

About OptionsCity

As developers of the award-winning Metro electronic trading and market-making platform, Chicago-based OptionsCity Software has helped options traders make markets and trade on the world’s leading derivative markets since 2006.  OptionsCity continues to innovate with the development of Freeway, a multi-asset trading platform designed to build, test, and deploy algorithms with micro-second execution. OptionsCity products are built on power, speed and reliability that options traders require to have full control over trading, safety, and risk management. OptionsCity is a certified Independent Software Vendor on leading global derivative exchanges and markets. For more information, please visit www.optionscity.com.

About Azul Systems

Azul Systems delivers high-performance and elastic Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) with unsurpassed scalability, manageability and production-time visibility. Designed and optimized for x86 servers and enterprise-class workloads, Azul’s Zing is the only JVM that supports highly consistent and pauseless execution for throughput-intensive and QoS-sensitive Java applications. Azul’s products enable organizations to dramatically simplify Java deployments with fewer instances, greater response time consistency, and dramatically better operating costs.