Sybase made a splash at its own conference this year by parading out a line of new products and unveiling three new partnerships, including an extended relationship with PeopleSoft
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Among its new products, Sybase released the beta version of the Sybase PowerBuilder 9.0, the company’s primary rapid application development (RAD) tool for supporting Microsoft.NET.
PowerBuilder 9.0, in its newest incarnation, incorporates XML and Java Server Pages (JSP) for deploying multi-architectural environments, and according to the company, the 9.0 version enables developers to more easily create JSP Web applications through wizards and other RAD tools.
The first phase of PowerBuilder 9.0 beta can import data directly from an XML document and save data that was retrieved from any source as a fully customized XML document. PowerBuilder also includes support for BEA’s WebLogic and IBM’s WebSphere.
Sybase’s open beta testing for PowerBuilder 9.0 began earlier this month and the product is slated for release in the first half of 2003. Pricing details have not yet been disclosed.
Additionally, Sybase announced the beta version of the Sybase Enterprise Portal 5.0, a new portal solution that will go to market by mid-August.
According to Sybase, the EP 5.0 provides a platform to host and access Web services for creating e-business applications. EP 5.0 includes a Portal Framework that supports the capture of Web content by end-users, and a Portal Studio for portlet development, deployment, and maintenance. The Portal Studio enables users with limited technical background to build even the most complex portlet in less than a day using a point-and-click interface that provides easy access to templates, catalogs, and information sources including Web, JSP, XML, HTML, databases, and Web services.
“Sybase EP 5.0 greatly simplifies portals for business end-users, developers, and administrators,” said Billy Ho, senior vice president and general manager of Sybase e-Business. “In particular, powerful portlet capabilities give business end-users access to information they need to do their jobs, without a lot of IT intervention. And, its support for multiple databases and application servers, coupled with Sybase’s best-in-class application and systems integration capabilities, mean Sybase EP 5.0 is one of the most open portal solutions available.”
Other product releases include a production-ready application server with J2EE 1.3 compatibility and support for secure Web services, and the Sybase EAServer for the AIX and HP-UX platforms. Sybase also announced the Borland Jbuilder 7 Enterprise, a next-generation Java development environment that will be marketed as a Sybase Edition and available for sale to Sybase customers.
In his keynote speech this morning at TechWave, Sybase CEO and President John Chen formally extended the company’s existing partnership with PeopleSoft by naming PeopleSoft its vendor of choice for preferred enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) products.
“PeopleSoft and Sybase clients include many of the largest global enterprises, spanning demanding markets like financial services, communications, and government,” said Chen. “To succeed, these organizations need world-class solutions that affordably, quickly, and securely connect customers, suppliers, partners, and employees. Sybase database, integration and infrastructure enterprise can help optimize PeopleSoft applications for these high-performance, high availability environments.”
In another upwardly mobile move, Sybase subsidiary Financial Fusion, Inc. announced an alliance with Samsung SDS to deliver online banking solutions to Asia. Samsung SDS is one of the leading Korean IT companies with a significant portion of the Asian market share.
Sybase also entered a worldwide reseller agreement with Protegrity, and Sybase subsidiary, iAnywhere Solutions announced plans to expand its Alliance Program to include solution providers and system integrators in addition to its roster of OEM partners. The target goal for iAnywhere is to increase its partner base by 25 percent by the end of the year, said a company spokesperson.
“The culmination of announcements and activity at this year’s conference highlight that Sybase is focused on meeting customer needs, through innovative technology and the right partnerships,” said Chen.
The annual San Diego-based Sybase TechWave conference will wrap up on August 9.
