SAP, Sybase Mobility Plans Rely on Channel Muscle

With the final contract’s ink barely dry, SAP and Sybase are letting the world know their marriage aims for enterprise mobility domination. Today, SAP, and its mobile subsidiary Sybase, released a slew of announcements focused on convincing the mobile market they’re here to stay. Today’s announcements indicate that Sybase is getting its ducks in a clean and tidy row, ready to attack the market in an attempt to expand its mobile footprint by driving SAP mobile applications and Sybase middleware into SAP’s massive customer base. So, what’s the channel impact? The German giant is looking to the channel to help secure a solid chunk of its success.

To demonstrate its channel momentum to the market, the company said it has formed more than 30 new partnerships since the fourth quarter of 2009 with resellers, managed service providers (MSPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs), aimed at delivering mobile applications for all-size businesses through the use of the Sybase Mobility Platform.

Willie Jow, Sybase’s VP of Mobility Product Marketing, says the company is focused on enabling the channel to provide mobile solutions that greatly impact the enterprise, and is aiming to expand its mobile footprint into the SAP customer base by targeting ISVs and integrators focused on SAP’s base.

“With Sybase’s reach, we can only go so far,” said Jow.  “With the acquisition, the SIs are saying, ‘it’s great.’ Before, they had to source their own accounts.”

Sybase knows the channel is its mobile bread and butter. Prior to its acquisition by SAP, the company had spent a lot of its time on fostering embedded software relationships with resellers and ISVs, and, going forward, post-acquisition,  the company is making clear that it has every plan to continue to rely on those relationships.

“It’s [the acquisition] positive from the channel perspective. The ISVs are saying, if I build the app on your platform, how many people are going to buy the application now?” said Jow. “Plus, hosting partners have always been looking for volume, now with the infrastructure—it has been very, very positive.”

Sybase offers packaged mobile SAP CRM applications, which some may see as a potential conflict with its ISV and reseller partners, but, in the past, spokespeople, including senior vice president of Mobility at Sybase, Gary Kovacs (/news-and-trends/sap-sybase-and-partners-cannibalize-or-thrive//) said the company knows it cannot be an expert on everything.

Jow reiterated that sentiment in his conversation with Channel Insider, saying that Sybase will rely on the channel, ISVs, integrators and MSPs that hold unsurpassed expertise in certain verticals and horizontal application targets.

Jo says the company is still working on identifying which verticals those include,

“It’s only been a couple of days,” said Jow, referring to the recent closing of the acquisition deal. “Over the next couple of months, we’ll see where that goes.”

Prior to the acquisition, SAP had an existing co-innovation relationship with Sybase as well as  relationships with ISVs like Syclo, a mobile workforce application and platform company,  which has extensive experience, expertise and solid success in enterprise asset management and verticals like oil and gas and industrial manufacturing.

Back in May, Syclo CEO Rich Padula told Channel Insider he was not threatened by the acquisition, and, rather, felt the teaming was positive for the marketplace.

"It certainly elevates the mobile message and, as they say, the rising tide lifts all boats," said Padula.

Padula believes that Syclo’s sweet spot with SAP is not affected by the Sybase acquisition.  

“We focus on the mobile workforce and line of business applications. Sybase was brought on for mobile CRM sales. SAP defined it before and nothing has really changed. The acquisition doesn’t change the strategy for co-innovating with the leaders in their respective spaces."

And, it appears, Sybase continues to drive those partnerships forward. In its announcement today, the company highlighted some of its new