Sybase Maps For Mobility

location based services



By Tim ScannellJune 27, 2006Sybase today released a mobility roadmap that packs all of its e-mail, device management and security applications into one strategic suitcase for mobile-minded enterprises.
You may have to wait a bit before hitting the road with this luggage, however, since applications specifically designed for the Information Anywhere Suite will only start to trickle in over the summer and continue at the company's TechWave partner and training conference, scheduled for mid-August in Las Vegas.
Mobile e-mail delivery, device management, device security and enterprise application enablement will be included in the suite.
Sybase's release strategy may be more an exercise in creative packing than launching new products. Many of the same applications that will be offered as part of this suite are already available through the company's iAnywhere Solutions group.
Not so, said Brian Vink, vice president of marketing for iAnywhere.
He said that while many of the planned modules will be nearly identical to current products, they will be revamped to provide more integration and convergence across mobile e-mail, management, security and enterprise applications.
These integrated applications will also target specific industry segments already populated by current Sybase users, he added.
"We talked to a number of customers about this roadmap," Vink told internetnews.com. "These companies are familiar with our strategy, they endorse it, and they speak to it as how they see it aligning with their own roadmaps.
"We have a pretty strong customer base since we are leveraging existing components," he added.
It would make sense, then, that a company just piece together current products from iAnywhere Solutions and construct their own roadmap. But that's not the case, said Rob Vietch, director of business development for iAnywhere.
"What we are seeing is mobile devices and that infrastructure coming of age."
This includes a new wave of converged mobile devices that are capable of all types of mobile applications, and operating systems that allow mobile users to do even more things remotely.
"So people are even more concerned about managing them, making them secure, and hooking them up to the enterprise," he added.
Current Sybase customers may view Sybase's integrated strategy as more of an update than a technology upheaval, since most already have a roadmap that coincides with the Sybase strategy.
In fact, many of these companies worked with Sybase and its iAnywhere Solutions group to develop their mobile framework, said Vink.
New customers, on the other hand, may be attracted by the company's formal convergence and interoperability platform.
"Lots of companies are telling us that want a roadmap and want to know there is a path in terms of scalability and what they are doing," noted Vink.
Reprinted from internetnews.com