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Sybase Inc. has carved a niche for itself in the enterprise mobility space. The company that started as a database provider realized a huge demand for mobile applications and became an early mover into this space with a vision for an 'unwired enterprise'.

Developers: Strong focus for Sybase
 "Technology innovation has been a key driver at Sybase," said Dr. Raj Nathan, Senior Vice President, information technology and solutions group (ITSG) in his keynote at TechWave 2006, Sybase's annual technical training conference.

Stressing the strong developer focus Sybase has, Dr Nathan said that all technology innovations at Sybase are for making a 'developer's work easy' such that he can use automated tools for mundane work and use the time available to him for creative development.

Sybase's developer membership has grown by approximately 200 per cent since 2002, from 40,000 members to 1,50,000 members in 2006.

Amongst a range of products that were announced at TechWave 2006, were Sybase iAnywhere's Secure Relay Architecture - a secure mobile gateway to easily and quickly test and deploy software products making work easy for IT administrators. Sybase IQ Analytics Server - an optimized analytics server that adds enhanced query performance, improved data privacy and features that support regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley. SQL Anywhere 10 - this version includes more than 200 features and has the ability to handle large volumes of data on the front lines of the enterprise.

"We would run special training and awareness programs in colleges as well as provide trial versions of our products to students to get a hang of our product and technologies." 
-Marty Beard, Sr VP, Sybase Inc.

Addressing worldwide media in a Press Roundtable at TechWave, Marty Beard, senior vice president, corporate development and marketing categorically expressed the importance of software developers for Sybase. "Sybase recognizes software developers as a very important pillar in its product strategy as it is these people who use our products," informed Marty.

To create awareness about its products amongst developers, Sybase has a dedicated site by the name Sybase Developer Network (SDN). SDN hosts codeXchange - a Sybase Developer Network feature that allows for the free exchange of code samples, utilities, scripts and other tools among members. It also hosts collaborative development projects where users can work together on open source code or a tool in development.

Questions related to Sybase products can be put forth on the Sybase Public Newsgroups where members of TeamSybase, an exclusive group of Sybase "super users" regularly answer questions and offer advice and expertise to participants within the community. This newsgroup has rooms for various Sybase and partner products. Also available on SDN are downloads for patches, trials, tools, and betas of Sybase products.

To reach out to aspiring developers, Sybase would like to create awareness about its technologies amongst students in engineering colleges and universities, informed Marty. "We would run special training and awareness programs in colleges as well as provide trial versions of our products to students to get a hang of our product and technologies."

International Sybase User Group: ISUG

International Sybase User Group: ISUG

Run by a group Sybase enthusiasts ISUG is a non-profit user group for Sybase and iAnywhere products. "Our members' interests cover all aspects of system development and operation, from system analysis and design to maintenance, warehousing, and the Web," informed Mike Harrold, president ISUG, on the sidelines of TechWave 2006. 

ISUG membership is available under a Basic, Journal and Complete package, where Basic members get access to private members website; members with Journal package receive all benefits of the basic users along with a subscription to the quarterly ISUG Technical Journal; members with Complete package get access to all of the above along with free versions of selected Sybase and iAnywhere products, informed Mike.

ISUG also hosts Virtual User Groups (VUGs) or Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for various topics. These virtual groups are hosted by Sybase engineers and participants meet over a conference call. Participants can get their queries answered by experts. Currently VUGs for EDI Tools/HIPAA, Impact, Mobility, Replication, and Sybase IQ exist and New groups are being organized for EAServer, PowerBuilder, and PowerDesigner.

"We are working very closely with country managers of various regions to spread awareness about ISUG, worldwide. We had a good success with Philippines last year; we are focusing very closely on India and China now," informed Mike.