Database Race For Sybase

"Database is still our main business. [When everyone keeps talking about the database business in the past tense, it makes me nervous," said Tom Traubitz, senior marketing manager for Sybase's Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) data management product.

These days, vendor competition in the distributed database arena has focused largely on IBM DB2's and Microsoft SQL Server's assault on Oracle's market-share lead, industry analysts say, adding that Sybase is largely an afterthought. "You've got three juggernauts. Sybase is fighting IBM, a more scalable Microsoft SQL Server and a robust Oracle," said Mark Shainman, an analyst at research firm Meta Group. Sybase's Achilles' heel is a lack of ISV support, he added.

Yet Traubitz said Sybase databases are doing just fine in the company's target markets: financial services, government, health care and telecommunications. He cited research showing that six out of 10 transactions go through Sybase databases and said Sybase's iAnywhere embeddable database retains 68 percent market share.

Solution providers say Sybase's database is holding steady in its established markets. "Sybase customers are a lot more loyal than Oracle's," said Ty Moser, president of Moser Consulting, Indianapolis.

The challenge for Sybase is gaining ground beyond its existing installed base, industry observers say. But Moser said he sees scant new business for any database in the down economy.

Sybase's next update to ASE, due this month, will add integrated replication for speeding data transport between two databases, Traubitz said. That capability is now offered in a separate replication server product.