Sybase - History

History

Sybase was founded in 1984 by Mark Hoffman, Bob Epstein, Jane Doughty and Tom Haggin in Epstein’s home in Berkeley, California. Together, they set out to create a relational database management system (RDBMS), which would organize information and make it available to many computers in a network.

In late 1986, Sybase shipped its first test programs, and in May 1987 formally released the SYBASE system, the first high-performance RDBMS for online applications. Rather than having a vast central bank of data stored in a large mainframe computer, the SYBASE System provided for a client/server computer architecture. Sybase was the first to market with a client/server relational database, providing the Human Genome Project with licenses for the first generation of client/server relational databases.

At the time, Sybase called the database server "Sybase SQL Server" and made a deal with Microsoft to share the source code for Microsoft to remarket on the OS/2 platform as "SQL Server". Until version 4.9, Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server were virtually identical. Due to disagreements between the two companies over revenue sharing (or lack thereof), Sybase and Microsoft decided to split the code-lines and went their own way, although the shared heritage is very evident in the Transact-SQL (T-SQL) procedural language as well as the basic process architecture. The big difference is that Sybase has a Unix heritage, while Microsoft SQL Server was adapted and optimized only for the Microsoft Windows NT operating system. Sybase continues to offer versions for Windows, several varieties of Unix, and for Linux.

In October 1989, Sybase released additional products, introducing the SYBASE Open Client/Server Interfaces—new software programs that provided generic client/server communication, allowing for greater connectivity within computer networks. With these new offerings, and its earlier system, Sybase achieved sales of $56 million in 1989. Two years later, in August 1991, Sybase made its initial public offering of stock.

In June 1992, Sybase announced its latest generation of software. Dubbed the System 10 product family, these programs were designed to provide a framework for companies to switch over their computer operations from older mainframe models to client/server systems. In April 1993, Sybase introduced the first component of System 10, called OmniSQL Gateway. This program connected the various parts of a computer network, enabling users at any point to gain access to changes being made anywhere on the system. Later that year, Sybase completed its rollout of the System 10 components, which included SQL Server 10 and Back-up Server; Open Client/Server APIs; and SQL Monitor and SA Companion, which were used to manage computer systems.

In 1994, Sybase acquired Powersoft, the leading maker of development tools for client-server computing, with 40 percent of that market. Through the deal, Sybase acquired PowerBuilder, a rapid application development (RAD) tool and Powersoft’s leading product. The acquisition also marked the basis of Sybase’s entry into the enterprise mobility market with Watcom SQL, which Sybase renamed SQL Anywhere. When Sybase launched its mobility subsidiary, Sybase iAnywhere, in 2000, SQL Anywhere became its flagship relational database management system (RDBMS) and helped the company to become the leader of the mobile database market.

In January, 1998, Sybase announced that the financial results for the company in the last three quarters of 1997 would have to be restated, as it found inconsistencies in profits reporting from its Japanese division. Five executives in Sybase's Japanese subsidiary were found to have used side letters to artificially inflate the profits from their operations. Following a class-action lawsuit, the five executives involved were fired.

Following a downturn in the late 1990s, Sybase returned to profitability under the management of John Chen in 2000, has maintained profitability since then and continues to reinvent itself with a new 'Unwired Enterprise' strategy. The 'Unwired Enterprise' vision is about allowing companies to deliver data to mobile devices in the field as well as traditional desktops, and combines technology from Sybase's existing data management products with its new mobility products. Sybase has expanded into the mobile space through a series of acquisitions of enterprise and mobile software companies. In 2006, Sybase completed the acquisition of Mobile 365, later renamed Sybase 365, allowed Sybase to enter the mobile messaging and mobile commerce market. Sybase has maintained a strong foothold in its data management products. It makes a number of data management products including Adaptive Server Enterprise, Sybase IQ, a data analytics warehouse system, and Replication Server, a vendor-neutral data movement system that helps address ever-growing data distribution and management requirements. Sybase has a strong presence in the financial services, telecommunications, technology and government markets.

Sybase now works with other industry leaders in infrastructure, data storage and virtualization to optimize technologies for delivery into public and virtual private cloud environments that provide greater technology availability and flexibility to Sybase customers looking to unwire their enterprise.

Sybase crossed the $1 billion dollar mark in 2007.

In May 2008, the Sybase IQ analytics server set a new Guinness World Record by powering the world’s largest data warehouse. In 2008, Sybase also launched RAP – The Trading Edition, an analytics platform for Wall Street. In August of the same year, Sybase promoted the Sybase Unwired Platform (SUP), a platform for developing mobile applications across a heterogeneous environment. In September 2008, Sybase 365 expanded its messaging interoperability with the launch of its global Multimedia Messaging Exchange, MMX 365.

On January 21, 2009, Sybase acquired mPayment solutions provider paybox. In March 2009, Sybase and SAP partnered to deliver the new SAP Business Suite software to iPhone, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and other devices. In September 2009, Sybase and Verizon partnered to manage mobility solutions for enterprises worldwide through Verizon’s Managed Mobility Solutions, which utilizes Sybase’s enterprise device management platform. Gartner reported that Sybase gained market share in the database industry in 2009.

In May 2010, SAP announced that it would be acquiring Sybase for $5.8 billion.

The company remains a standalone subsidiary of SAP and headed by CEO John Chen.

Sybase 365 is one of the largest independent (non-telco) exchanges for text (SMS) and multimedia (MMS) messages. By September 2010, it had delivered more 1 trillion messages - equivalent to 32,000 per second for an entire year.

In November 2010, Sybase and Verizon delivered a managed mobility service to reduce the complexity for enterprises to develop and deploy mobile apps, even if they have diverse back-end software and user devices (i.e. multiple brands and platforms of smartphones and tablets). The need appears to be there: 90% of IT managers plan to deploy new mobile apps and one in two believe that successfully managing mobile apps will top their priority list, according to a January survey sponsored by Sybase.

Sybase remains committed to its data management and analytics products. Sybase IQ was positioned in the Leaders quadrant of Gartner's 2011 Data Ware House Database Management System Magic Quadrant. In February 2012, Sybase IQ also achieved the best overall performance results among non-clustered systems for the TPC-H benchmark at the 1 TB scale factor.