A number of notes concerning Azul Systems have reached our inbox - none of them bringing very inspiring news.

Our sources claim that Azul - a maker of specialized Java server appliances - is very much a creature in flux. Azul laid off 45 staff, most of them in India, on Monday, according to one source. Meanwhile, a pair of sources say that Azul mucked up its latest funding round with one investor bailing out, while another investor delivered enough cash to pay off some bills.

In a recent exchange, however, he said that, "Business is good."

"Azul’s solutions are driving some amazing apps in some of the most sophisticated environments out there," he said. "And, as always, we are continuing to push the R&D horizon. Plenty of news on that front in the months ahead."

DeWitt also confirmed that Azul is going through at least some kind of transition. It recently hired a new SVP of sales in Evan Ellis, a new VP of hardware in John Brennan and a new VP of marketing in Ram Appalaraju.

Azul crafts server appliances based around its own multi-core chips. The systems - 768 processors and 768GB of memory - scream through Java code. The start-up has also been leading the push around transactional memory.

The company recently settled litigation with Sun Microsystems. A number of Sun staff went to Azul, and Sun argued that Azul had made too liberal use of ideas around multi-threaded software and multi-core chips. Azul fought back for awhile before agreeing to the settlement. As we understand it, Sun now holds close to 5 per cent of Azul.

It's hard to imagine folks like Ellis and Brennan jumping into the executive ranks in late May if Azul was really in a death spiral. That said, it sounds like the litigation and settlement with Sun derailed Azul's latest funding efforts to a degree, causing the company to miss some payments to suppliers and fostering a bit of ill will towards the start-up.

Er, layoffs never help either.®

Related stories

• Azul finds a new CEO (29 November 2007)
• Azul investor removes invisibility cloak (17 October 2007)
• Azul smacks down Reg claims with $40m (13 September 2007)
• Exclusive Azul puts itself on the block (12 September 2007)
• Sun appears to own part of Java server start-up Azul (20 June 2007)
• Start-up forced to admit that Sun invented Java (19 June 2007)
• Azul bullies Java with 768 core machine (15 June 2007)
• Azul opens 768-core diner with Vega 2 (6 December 2006)
• Is that a VMware CTO and Transmeta CEO at your start-up? (25 August 2006)
• Sun sues Azul, using Tremblay Gambit (4 May 2006)
• No garbage hassles as BT goes Azul (3 April 2006)
• Azul to fire up 48-core Java chip in 2007 (28 March 2006)
• Java start-up Azul sues big daddy Sun (15 March 2006)
• Server start-up says Dell is too hot to be cheap (29 August 2005)
• Azul puts 384-way Java rocket up for sale (18 April 2005)
• Azul reveals supersonic Java machine (1 October 2004)
• Stealthy Azul's Java plans unstealthed (25 February 2004)
• Interview DeWitt comes to terms with Cobalt's end (28 January 2004)