Mobile Solutions CI

Sybase iAnywhere offers lifeline to Nokia Intellisync users

Sybase iAnywhere offers lifeline to Nokia Intellisync users - vnunet.com.

Nice move on Sybase's part. In many ways Sybase remains the last of the standalone true mobile middleware players. With the global credit panic and crunch Sybase is unlikely to be able to spin off its mobile business as it was being pressured to do by an investor.

The larger question, of course, is if standalone mobile middleware will remain a market. With Microsoft's entry DM server Nokia appears to have voted no.

Sybase and HTC announce joint WM device and DM initiative

Sybase and HTC Corp. announced a global alliance to team on strategic business, engineering and marketing initiatives designed to deliver optimized Sybase iAnywhere mobility software on HTC devices.

"The alliance will focus initially on the management and security components of the Sybase Information Anywhere® suite, which provides a platform for enterprise mobility. Sybase will work closely with HTC on product optimization and integration, resulting in stronger Windows Mobile device management and security options for enterprises."

Sybase and HTC represent a long term strategic threat to other mobile middleware players due to the overlapping penetration of HTC WM devices with Sybase Afaria's Exchange base. For Exchange-only shops who want to standardize on a WM solution, and offer only a few device choices to employees to keep support costs down, this combination would be an attractive solution because of Afaria's strong integration into Microsoft solutions and channel reach as a MS Gold partner.

Other vendors should respond to this threat by creating a packaged DM + WM device offer which focuses on clean "out of the box" experience to allow partners and enterprise to easily pilot, install, and provision.

However, in the short term this remains a press release. HP announced a similar initiative earlier this year with its Bitfone acquisition. That bundled offer has seen little traction despite combining device, DM solution, and professional services. HP's announcement:

My earlier wrapup of HP announcement

Symantec acquires Altiris; DM vendor consolidation

From today's WSJ (subscription required): "Symantec agreed to acquire Altiris Inc., a maker of software that helps companies manage their technology systems, for about $830 million. The agreement is expected to close in the second quarter.

Altiris specializes in client, server, and asset management software. The software is useful for big computer companies to offer to customers because it allows buyers to quickly update and reconfigure systems, alleviating their fears about the time involved in switching over to new equipment from older machines."

Last month I noted HP announced it would acquire Bitfone, another main player in mobile Device Management (DM).

With consolidation in the DM space it is increasingly important for mobile middleware vendors to establish themselves as a mobile platform. If mobility is viewed as one part of IT asset management including PCs and servers, solutions such as Altiris gain the upper hand. For point solutions such as Good (and arguably still RIM) this doesn't matter, for Nokia Intellisync and Sybase Afaria it does.

Altiris is not competitive for only mobile device management. Their competitiveness is where a customer is looking for a single middleware platform to cover PCs, mobile devices and event servers.

Altiris Handheld Management Suite (HMS) is the mobile application subset of Altiris' IT lifecyle management system; it is an indirect competitor to Sybase Afaria and Nokia Intellisync. Altiris customers are the market segment of enterprises who view mobile DM as a subset of IT asset management. 73 of the Fortune 100 have bought Altiris to manage PCs. Alitiris has a strong offering for PC desktop hardware and server management, with solid partners including HP’s personal systems group and Dell.

Altiris’ primary business line is PC management, followed by server management. For example, a major part of their current business is helping enterprises prepare for Microsoft Vista migrations. Handheld management comes third in their business. Altiris’s product has a centralized notification server which in turn manages client solutions (including mobile devices), servers and IT assets (including PCs). An Altiris agent resides on the managed computers.

Altiris HMS customers can configure their asset-management tool to keep their mobile hardware in sync with security and licensing policies, with the ability to install application and device patches on a scheduled basis. Altiris has BB client support but not OMA.

Overview of OneBridge 5.5 Release

OneBridge, the Sybase iAnywhere company, is announcing availability of its new 5.5 version today.

Positioning:

• Marketing Mobile Suite as a full suite of device management, email, sync, SDKs (the SDKs are branded as “Mobile Objects”) as opposed to a mobile email solution
• Feature and administrative interface integration with the Afaria device management solution provides end-to-end encryption (Afaria extends on-device data encryption to OneBridge's FIPS-compliant transmission encryption)

Key Feature Upgrades:

• Server now standardized on port 80/https port 443
• Supports clustering and load balancing (failover in clustered environment)
• Remote corporate lookup only for WM5, Symbian and PPC coming later

Product Launch:

• Aggressively pushing free, hosted trial (claims less than 45 minutes to get pilot up and running—view interface at www.inanywhere.com/getonebridge.com)
• This upgrade is included in current maintenance licenses (current 5.0 users with full support will get upgrade for free)
• Service pack upgrade with significant fixes coming in January

Sybase completes Mobile 365 acquisition--will it work?

Sybase recently announced it had completed its acquisition of Mobile 365, renaming it Sybase 365.

Last week I spoke to one of Mobile 365’s sales executives for additional background. As part of the deal he and much of the Mobile 365 sales team were let go because their roles were viewed as redundant to current Sybase roles. His view is that the Sybase will lose traction in the operator channel because the enterprise sales team that replaced the Mobile 365 operator sales team lacks required experience and will have to rebuild relationships with operator partners. 

However, this buy adds IM to Sybase’s messaging portfolio and provides access to the operator channel relationships that Sybase lacked. It also adds key go-to-market components which Sybase might capitalize on.

• IM: Sybase 365 claims to be the global leader in mobile interoperability messaging (SMS, MMS, and IM)
• Operator channel: 700 mobile operators, content providers, media companies and large enterprises; major customers include Cingular, O2, Telcel, Telefonica, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone
• Application delivery: Distribution channel and infrastructure for delivering marketing campaigns, interactive services and premium content to consumers for major brands (Citibank, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL) including live event contests, broadcasts and mobile alerts
• Software as Service infrastructure: Sybase 365 will provide a service-based model for Sybase to deliver AvantGo (mobile content and services) and mFolio Web content mobilization server, and data analytics
  
• View the Sybase press release here: http://www.sybase.com/detail?id=1047934