Sybase unveils mobility platform: servers, applications, services

In an attempt to get ahead early in the mobile space, Sybase on Thursday unveiled its Mobility Platform, a comprehensive framework of mobility servers, mobile applications and services for the enterprise.

With mobility a growing part of IT departments' concerns, Sybase said it wants to prepare for the ongoing shift to a world filled with users who use smartphones for personal and work purposes, who want to conduct mobile commerce and still require the backbone of an IT system that provides security, analytics and 24/7/365 access.

With its new platform, Sybase said it wants to do away with siloed systems and device interoperability problems by providing what is effectively a one-stop shop for mobility.

The Sybase Mobility Platform consists of:

• Sybase Mobile Servers: includes Sybase Unwired Platform (SUP) development, Sybase Afaria Device Management Suite, Sybase iAnywhere Mobile Office and SQL Anywhere
• Mobile Applications: includes Sybase Mobile Sales for SAP CRM, Sybase Mobile Workflow for SAP Business Suite and Sybase mBanking 365
• Sybase Mobile Services/mCommerce Services: for both developed and emerging markets
• Enterprise Services: apps and services for mobile marketing and mobile CRM,
• Operator Services: partnerships with 900 mobile operators

Marty Beard, president of Sybase 365, told me that the new platform "allows for B2E and B2C on one platform."

Terry Stepien, president of Sybase iAnywhere, said mobile data is a top five expense in the enterprise, adding that the change in the immediacy of demand -- "Never before could you reach someone at any time; before, they had to go somewhere for Internet access," he said -- and the increasingly heterogeneous device environment provided an opening for the company.

Beard said security was also an ongoing process. One could argue that mobility is more secure because it provides multiple authentication, he said.

Beard also said the company was focusing on core concerns, such as security, device management and mobile commerce first; then CRM and analytics.

The enormity of the platform allows the company to provide detailed analytics to clients, collecting it and analyzing it as it streams through the company's five datacenters across the globe. Beard mentioned that the company can leave less out of the cloud for security purposes (such as financial clients), at the expense of some analytics detail.

Beard added a couple more comments:

• applications will be native for now, as hypervisors gobble up too much battery life;
• future areas of investigation include location and near-field communications.

The wild card, of course, is SAP's recent acquisition of Sybase. Right now it's very wait-and-see, but it's clear that the appeal of Sybase to SAP extends to its real-time in-memory analytics.