Managing and mobilizing information

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Managing and mobilizing information

By NORMAN P. AQUINO, Senior Reporter

 

Data represents the lifeblood of any organization. With the right information, companies can improve on customer satisfaction, increase efficiency of the supply chain, identify market trends and improve on the bottom line.

 

BusinessWorld spoke with officials of database maker Sybase at the sidelines of a conference for its enterprise clients last week. Mehul Rajparia, Sybase Software (India) Pvt. Ltd. director of channel sales, and Randall R. Lozano, Sybase Solutions Corp. president and general manager, talked about their "unwired enterprise" concept, which focuses on enabling customers to connect back-office data to end-users either through wireless personal digital assistants, browser-enabled personal computers or any other computing device.

 

Officials of the largest global enterprise software company exclusively focused on managing and mobilizing information from the data center to the point of action also talk about Linux and how it has changed Sybase’s world.

 

What are some of the hurdles and limitations Sybase needs to overcome to enable the unwired enterprise?

 

Mr. Rajparia: The biggest hurdle we are addressing is focus -- working with the local team. We are lining up a very good team who can focus on executing the unwired enterprise. You have seen very good success in other markets like the United States and we have had limited success in the Philippines. With the focus we are putting in terms of technology and the management team, we expect growth and success next year.

 

With this non-traditional model for moving computing out there to the edge, who are your allies?

 

Mr. Rajparia: We normally partner with technology companies. We are hardware agnostic, and we work with Palm, CE, Symbian, Blackberry and PocketPC.

 

In the Sybase portfolio, you have the ASE [adaptive server enterprise] database, NEON [new era of networks] for integration, AvantGo for delivering information to mobile users, iAnywhere Solutions mobile database and middleware. Do you see any gaps?

 

Mr. Rajparia: Our focus and our vision is to provide what we call information management which fills the gap between the data center to the device. If you see the recent acquisitions we have made, all focus is towards that. Either we build our own information provider [company] or we acquire it.

 

For example, in an enterprise, information integration is very important so we acquired Avaki earlier this year, and we are just starting to integrate it in our product portfolio. In such a short time since we acquired them in May, we already have nine or 10 customer pilots.

 

It’s not finalized, but we are in the process of acquiring Extended Systems, Inc. Extended Systems will help us fill the gap. We have a good mobile infrastructure but not very good mobile applications.

 

Where are customers’ priorities today?

 

Mr. Rajparia: The first priority is cost. Everybody is cost-conscious. The second is the service from vendors and partners, which is good for us. If you look at our competition, they are very expensive. I’m not talking of just software cost but more of people cost, implementation cost, hardware cost -- the total cost of ownership. Studies done by independent companies showed that we are a lot better than our competitors. On the average, we are 30%-50% cheaper in terms of the total cost of ownership.

 

How important is it to make it easier for developers?

 

Mr. Rajparia: We give them high-productivity tools. Sybase PowerBuilder is one example. For 12 or 13 years going, there is still not a single product that can match our productivity [offering]. We have a special feature called data window, a patented technology that really speeds up development. .NET (pronounced dotnet) is very powerful but we also have DataWindow.net. We are taking the best part of PowerBuilder and making it available to .NET developers. We want to be open -- whether .NET or PowerBuilder, we want you to achieve productivity. We are announcing a development framework called WorkSpace, which is based on Eclipse, a world standard for application development. We don’t have to have proprietary interface which is hard to learn. Since WorkSpace is based on Eclipse, it is very easy to migrate from one platform to another.

 

There’s a lot of buzz around utility computing, making better utilization of resources. Is that something you have put money into?

 

Mr. Rajparia: Making better use of resources is very important. That’s where the cost comes into the picture. The good news is, inherently, some of our software design takes advantage of maximum resources on hardware. So, for years, you could run multiple systems using Sybase on the same hardware, unlike some other vendors.

 

How has Linux changed your world?

 

Mr. Rajparia: A lot, because, first, it reduces our competition, and then in terms of Linux, we were the first database company to put a database together in Linux. For four consecutive years we are the No. 1 database technology for Linux in terms of cost and performance.

 

Do you see Sybase on Unix gradually declining as a trend among your customers?

 

Mr. Lozano: No. Linux is opening up new markets but it is not eating up the Unix market. It is more eating up the Microsoft market from a database perspective.

 

What about the future of Linux? Will the market for Linux applications continue to grow?

 

Mr. Rajparia: Absolutely. Definitely, there’s a great demand right now. There’s a lot of demand even in the Philippines. There are a lot of customers who’ve been asking from us about enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management.

 

Have any of your clients moved from Unix to Windows?

 

Mr. Lozano: Not that from Unix to Windows but we’ve seen a lot of movement in our client base from Microsoft to Linux.

 

Does Linux have the industrial strength that an enterprise needs in an operating system? Why have there been so many credible-sounding claims that Linux is actually less secure than Windows?

 

Mr. Lozano: Security is only as good as your policy regardless of the platform, whether Unix, Linux or Windows. For Sybase, we’ve added security features in our products. It is the only database that has a native encryption. If you are searching for data, you encrypt the search criteria and do a search across the database against the column of encrypted data. Nothing ever gets decrypted so you don’t leave the data in a decrypted form, which can be a security risk.

 

Mr. Rajparia: Database remains a critical part of our portfolio. Our goal is to provide information management from the data center to the device, [regardless of whether it uses] Sybase, Oracale or IBM, or whether it uses Unix, Linux or Windows. Whether you’re in the office, restaurant, etc. we can provide information management from the data center to the device. So first, we are making sure customers understand that this year, we will focus on increasing awareness and turn this into real projects. The local team is gearing up from a management and product perspective to execute these information management solutions.

 

What are the next steps for Sybase?

 

Mr. Rajparia: If I were to name three important things about Sybase, [first] is we are a strong company with 21 years of history. [Second], we are very committed to the Philippine market and you see that in the investment that we’ve made in the local market. [Third], we focus on making sure we help corporate customers manage their information better, which is more than just the database.

 

What is Sybase’s market share in the Philippines and the world?

 

Mr. Lozano: In the Philippines, our market share is less than the competition. But they were first in the market, they were a product of marketing hype.

 

Mr. Rajparia: And from our side, we don’t try to do everything for everyone. We focus on telecommunications, banking and insurance. If you look at our market share from that perspective, you can say we are No. 1. In mobility, we are No. 1. We are hopeful that with Extended Systems, we will be very strong.

 

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