SAP, Sybase Plan Comprehensive Enterprise Platform

SAP, with its Sybase mobility acquisition in tow, has unveiled some new plans to load up the channel’s arsenal to make it easier and quicker to extend enterprise mobile applications out of SAP.

SAP plans to enhance Sybase’s mature mobile middleware offerings with the addition of SAP business analytics and enterprise information management products over the next nine months, the company told partners, press and analysts last week at an event in Boston and Frankfurt.  SAP also showed what the newly integrated mobile products would look like.

“We are making significant improvements, making it more comprehensive,” said Brian Vink, vice-president, data management products at Sybase. “Combining the mobility side with SAP business suite analytics is about generating an optimized comprehensive solution for analytics. Enterprise information management brings support to provide a comprehensive platform for data management.”

So, what does it mean for partners? SAP says it’s relying heavily on its own and Sybase’s existing partners to seed the market with the newly revamped Sybase Unwired Platform. Even though the company released its own packaged applications for CRM and sales force automation, SAP says the market is huge and it is looking to the channel to help its customers innovate. The company says when it comes to mobility, it is focused on the platform, not necessarily the applications.

“Customers want a platform, not point solutions, and this is what we are seeing in the ecosystem today,” says Vink.

Vink says he knows that SAP is not the only source for enterprise data, and will not be forcing partners to develop just for SAP or close off integration options.

“Frankly, enterprise data doesn’t just sit in one spot,” said Vink “We will continue our commitment to staying open to other enterprise data sources.

SAP also confirmed that Sybase will be run as its own, separate business unit and reassured Sybase customers that existing products will be continued and supported.

The following are SAP’s integration plans:

• A co-developed, integrated SAP and Sybase mobile platform that brings the strengths of each company’s technology to market for development and deployment of enterprise mobile applications, in the form of the Sybase Unwired Platform.
• The revamped platform will support all major operating systems and all mainstream devices. The company plans to make this platform available to partners for implementations and application development for existing and new SAP customers.
• SAP’s Business Suite and EIM solutions will integrate with the Sybase ASE database platform, giving customers and partners a choice for SAP app deployment and ongoing information management
• Sybase IQ and Sybase ASE will support SAP’s business analytics offering, SAP BusinessObjects, also an acquisition asset.
• SAP plans to incorporate in-memory computing technology across SAP and Sybase data management solutions, so users can get browser-based access to any data in one environment.