Sybase pushes back for market share

The database vendor is pushing its mobile computing business with a number of announcements this week including an alliance with Samsung SDS and a new developers network program.

Sybase is focusing on three key markets in an attempt to recover from its sagging database sales over the past year. Increasing competition from Oracle and Microsoft and a saturated market have driven the database sales down for all vendors, but Sybase has faired fairly poorly in the battle for market share.

To correct the problem, the Emeryville, California-based vendor is targeting the data warehouse business, Internet computing, and the mobile computing market.

The deal with Samsung is specifically to target the Korean market. Under the terms of the deal, the companies will jointly market develop and sell mobile products in the Korean market based on Sybase's SQL Anywhere Studio and its UltraLite mobile databases.

"Samsung SDS has experienced strong customer demand for mobile and embedded computing [systems]," said Hong-Ki Kim, Samsung SDS's managing director.

To further its reach in the domestic remote and mobile market, Sybase is launching a new developer network to encourage software developers to build products using Sybase's embedded mobile database.

"The mobile and embedded developers network provides developers with timely and convenient access to beta and release products, technical information, events, and support to ensure the rapid delivery of [software products] based on Sybase SQL Anywhere Studio and its UltraLite deployment technology," Sybase executives said in a statement.

Sybase is expected to expand the program to include early access to products and beta versions, bug fixes, online training, and self-service support.