Sybase bets its future on Unwired Enterprise vision

When Sybase hit a rough patch in its core database business, it decided to reorient itself across different market segments. This strategy helped the company penetrate new areas where there was little competition—yet where there existed synergies with its database strengths. Now, the most competitive edge for the company comes from its leadership position in mobile databases. Sybase wants to use this edge to dominate the emerging market where enterprise applications are going mobile, says Srikanth R P

Balaji Jagannathan says that Sybase India will concentrate on mobile databases, disaster recovery and enterprise application integration as part of its Unwired Enterprise vision in the current year

When it comes to any ranking of database players, Sybase has always been around. But, as it looks towards the future, and considers its position as a smaller, less-powerful player in a field full of giants, Sybase is trying a different tack to succeed. While a major chunk of growth will still come from databases, Sybase is not relying on this strength alone. The company’s product family now includes products in the areas of databases, development tools, integration middleware, enterprise portals, financial services, healthcare software, mobile and wireless technologies.

But as the core product is the database, Sybase is using products and solutions built around its database to attack the database businesses of its traditional rivals. For instance, the company is targeting the users of rival products by aggressively pushing solutions like disaster recovery, replication technologies and business intelligence.

Sybase also understands its limitations in the database business well and is looking at attracting system integrators by asking them to focus more on providing services around the installed base of its rivals by using Sybase solutions. With the growth of the BPO industry in India, Sybase is eyeing huge growth for its disaster recovery solutions in these parts.

In fact, while India has not been a traditional focus area for Sybase, the emergence of the developer population as a powerful influence group and increasing demand from the domestic market has led Sybase to consider India as a key strategic base. India is home to around 6,50,000 developers, constituting close to 10 percent of the world’s developer population. This base is growing at an average of more than 30 percent year-on-year, making the Indian developer community one of the most important groups in deciding which products are likely to succeed in the marketplace.

Intelligent choices

Another big market the company is eyeing in India is the business intelligence space. According to a Frost & Sullivan report, the Indian BI market in 2002-03 was estimated at around $15 million. But as more and more enterprises are investing in BI tools, the report estimates the market in India to grow at a CAGR of 33.9 percent between 2001-08. Additionally, a survey by Gartner in 2003 showed that 57 percent of enterprises in India considered BI to be an important initiative for the year 2004.

At the core of Sybase’s BI strategy is Sybase IQ, a scalable analytical engine designed specifically for analytics and not just transactions. Sybase claims this approach results in better performance as compared to traditional databases. Sybase is also betting big on its enterprise analytics infrastructure, christened Industry Warehouse Studio (IWS). IWS is a framework that helps companies develop business intelligence applications that suit their businesses. Globally, the company has been strong in the telecom space. With the huge growth in the Indian telecom market, Sybase is looking at positioning its business intelligence solutions aggressively in this space.

Successfully mobile

But the biggest market could come from what is clearly Sybase’s key strength today—the huge untapped area of mobile databases and mobile middleware. Market research firm IDC defines mobile middleware as a software platform that includes server or client/server software that either extends the reach of existing IP or other mission-critical applications such as groupware, CRM, sales force automation or ERP solutions. In short, mobile middleware addresses the need to deliver corporate applications specifically to mobile and wireless environments.

The area of mobile middleware is a niche field today but analysts believe that it is set to explode with more and more companies ensuring that their infrastructure is in tune with global mobility trends. IDC estimates the mobile middleware market to reach $1.7 billion in 2006, growing at a CAGR of 49.8 percent. A Sybase subsidiary, iAnywhere, already has more than 70 percent of the mobile database market, clearly dominating powerful rivals like IBM, Oracle and Microsoft. With more and more Indian companies looking at mobile applications for functions such as sales force automation and SCM, Sybase is keen on partnering with Indian software vendors. While every database vendor today is trying to get its foothold into this space, Sybase’s research over the past five years in the mobile database market has been key to its standing in this segment.

Says Horace Chow, area vice president, Sybase, “Every database vendor is trying to get into the mobile database market by cutting down on features. But the key to succeed in this space is to build a product from the ground up—which is exactly what we have done today. This framework is different from what we have for our main database product. Today, the size of our mobile database is the smallest in the world, which is difficult for our competitors to match.”

A mobile database is key to devices used by employees with field functions. While many smart devices use embedded databases to track and store data, the constraint is that the data is stored locally. But a mobile database gives a device the ability to send data back and forth between a mobile database and a stationary database. But the ability to synchronise and exchange information is a difficult task, which Sybase has been able to achieve because of its focused approach.

While a typical enterprise has many business applications, current IT configurations prevent remote workers from accessing vital data. Additionally, developing and integrating mobile applications for the man on the field has been a nightmare for organisations. Sybase is looking to cash in on this opportunity by combining its strengths in databases, data management and middleware solutions to put together a strong strategy for going after the enterprise mobile applications market where it faces lesser competition from its traditional rivals. Sybase calls this strategy ‘Unwired Enterprise,’ which today has all the components for enabling organisations to go wireless.

Says Balaji Jagannathan, country director, India at Sybase, “We believe we have a tremendous opportunity in India when it comes to our Unwired Enterprise vision. For the current year, we will be concentrating on domains like mobile databases, disaster recovery and enterprise application integration.”

With products in data management, replication, warehousing, application development/design (Powerbuilder, PowerDesigner), enterprise portals and support for back-office integration with major enterprise players like SAP and Oracle, Sybase has a competitive advantage in the mobile applications field. Another significant advantage over a rival like Microsoft is Sybase’s ability to work across different platforms like Palm, Pocket PC, Linux or Windows—unlike Microsoft’s Windows-only pitch.

In India, apart from the increasing intent on the part of organisations to unwire their enterprises, there has also been a lot of action on the WiFi front, pushed by technology companies like Intel and third-party service providers like Sify, Bharti and the Tata group. As Sybase has all the components for enabling a smooth rollout of wireless applications, this could be a big potential area for the company to tap.

Sybase is also setting up what it calls a ‘resource centre’ in India. The resource centre will be a combination of a development centre and a customer support centre. The Indian development centre will not only be involved in localisation and customisation of Sybase’s products but will also be involved in developing future products for Sybase.

Conclusion

While Sybase has a lot of strengths in different market segments, the Unwired Enterprise strategy is key to the company’s success as it not only combines Sybase’s different strengths, but more importantly, gives the company the competitive edge it needs to succeed against more powerful rivals. With most analysts predicting that the next wave of spending in information technology would come from mobility, Sybase’s positioning could make it a company to watch out for as it seeks to bring mobility to the enterprise application space.

Sybase’s product portfolio

Application Servers Business Intelligence Business Process Integration Database Servers Enterprise Modelling Enterprise Portals Internet Application/Development tools Middleware Mobile & wireless

srikanth@expresscomputeronline.com