Oracle today announced ongoing momentum with organizations deploying Oracle(R) Fusion Middleware on Linux. Oracle Fusion Middleware, the company's comprehensive, standards-based family of middleware products is the fastest growing middleware suite, and continues to experience exceptional growth with an increasing number of organizations choosing open, standards-based technologies that lay the foundation for service-oriented architectures (SOA). Growing its new license revenue by 24 percent year over year during Q3 FY06, a portion of Oracle Fusion Middleware's growth is connected to Linux. Oracle's hot-pluggable architecture, combined with Linux, the fastest growing operating system, enables customers to deliver highly available, secure, enterprise-class solutions on the lowest cost hardware and operating system infrastructure.

Many customers are using Oracle Fusion Middleware on Linux in mission-critical environments and are reaping the benefits of lower costs, improved manageability, higher availability and flexibility, along with performance and scalability advantages. The number of customers using Linux has increased with each software version release. Between January 2005 and March 15, 2006, nearly 50 percent of Oracle Application Server 10g Release 3 shipments were on Linux, compared to approximately 30 percent of Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 shipments. Similarly, product downloads from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) demonstrate the same trend with nearly 40 percent of Oracle Application Server 10g Release 3 downloads on Linux versus nearly 25 percent of Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 on Linux.

"We have a long history of working closely with our customers to deliver the best solutions at the lowest costs," said Rick Schultz, vice president, Oracle Fusion Middleware. "These statistics show that Oracle Fusion Middleware on Linux increasingly satisfies the needs of organizations across a wide range of industries to drive down costs while delivering critical middleware functionality."

Applied Biosystems uses Oracle Fusion Middleware on Linux as the platform for its award-winning SQL*LIMS software. "In the Life Science business, it's imperative that our systems' IT infrastructure provides unparalleled performance, reliability and scalability," said Dave Ciabattoni, Senior Software Engineering Manager at Applied Biosystems. "Oracle Fusion Middleware on Linux enables us to deliver an affordable option to our traditional high-end UNIX customers, both large and small, and gives us best-of-breed middleware technologies that help us build and deploy revenue-generating solutions faster."

Gevity relies on Oracle Fusion Middleware on Linux for delivering HR and Payroll Services via the Web. "Oracle Fusion Middleware on Linux makes it easy for us to deploy and manage our solutions with minimal IT resources," said Mark Zimmerman, VP Information Technology, Gevity. "It's reassuring to know our systems are built on Oracle's market leading middleware and Linux operating system -- the combination enables us to deliver unique services to our market."

Vanguard Car Rental, the operator of both National and Alamo car rental brands, uses Oracle Fusion Middleware on Linux for running National and Alamo Web sites. "National and Alamo Web sites are integral parts of our business. It's imperative that our Web sites have high-availability and performance that allows us to maximize the revenue potential from this important channel," said Tyler Best, CIO, Vanguard. "Oracle Fusion Middleware on Linux provides the enterprise platform to run these mission-critical websites."