Despite the bleak economic picture, there are bright spots. Sybase reported its best quarter and full year in the company's history, driven by factors such as database license revenues which increased 38% year over year in Q408 and 28% for the full year, ended Dec. 31, 2008. David Jonker, a senior product marketing manager at Sybase focused on market strategy for the Sybase ASE, SQL Anywhere and Mirror Activator product lines, shared some thoughts on the results.
According to Jonker, fundamental to the Unwired Enterprise approach is the concept of distributed data management, "this idea that I need different data in different places for different uses." Based on that philosophy, he notes, Sybase has built "best-in-class databases for very specific uses and very specific environments." While Sybase ASE for example is very focused on mission-critical OLTP kinds of environments, there is also Sybase IQ and RAP (risk analytics platform) "which is all about how do you analyze information." And then there is the SQL Anywhere product which is designed for mobile and embedded, and optimized for those kinds of environments. Over the last number of years, he says, "More and more of our customers are using more of our portfolio of databases to solve different kinds of problems in their environment."
The financial services sector has always been and will continue to be a key sector for Sybase, he notes. "While we are cautiously optimistic about our 2009 results, longer term, what we think we are going to see in the marketplace is that there is going to be a lot more regulation around financial services," states Jonker. "Of course, when you start talking about a lot more regulation, you start talking about a lot more reporting and tracking of information and data."
For more information about Sybase's financial results, go to the Sybase website.
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