Applications /

Sybase continues to refocus

By Tom Sullivan
InfoWorld, 07/31/00

Sybase, in Emeryville, Calif. is continuing its shift away from being a traditional database vendor and toward offering an e-business platform.

Next week at its TechWave user group conference in Orlando, Fla, Sybase will make a number of announcements around its BI (business intelligence), enterprise portal, and wireless strategies.

Eric Miles, senior vice president of business intelligence at Sybase, said the company's BI unit is becoming more relevant to its overall strategy.

"We founded the BI division 18 months ago, and it was very much our smallest initiative," Miles said. "But the division has grown, and the conference, in part, will be about the evolution of Sybase toward business intelligence."

Sybase, for instance, will announce a partnership with New Zealand-based Compudigm International, under which Sybase will resell Compudigm's Seepower, software that enables companies to track their performance based on key performance indicators using patented data visualization technology. Seepower embeds Sybase's Adaptive Server IQ data warehouse and allows users to evaluate information graphically so that they can visually analyze their company's performance.

Miles said that the initial offering of Seepower is customized for the gaming and retail industries, and that the companies also will pursue other markets, including financial services, banking, insurance, and telecommunications.

"Compudigm is the first in a number of announcements we'll make along these lines," Miles said.

Seepower is a key aspect of the Enterprise Portal product that Sybase will demonstrate at TechWave. The company will announce its own Sybase.com Portal. Formerly known as MySybase.com, it is a rearchitected Web information and personalized support site for customers, partners, and users. The company will demonstrate new wireless capabilities of its Enterprise Portal.

Additionally, Sybase will announce EAServer 3.6, which offers full support of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE).

The company also will issue a beta release of PowerBuilder 8.0, which adds the latest in application development tools.

Finally, Sybase will launch a support system designed to provide telecommunications service providers with a pre-built, Web-based solution for integrating support system applications.