Nov. 1, 2009 (The Hindu Business Line) --

D. Murali

Currently, the absence of a 3G/4G next generation network within India has slowed down the process of adopting mobile applications, feels Sunil Jose, Managing Director, India & Sub-Continent Region, Sybase (NYSE:SY) Software (India) Pvt Ltd, Mumbai ( www.sybase.in).

With the impending announcements of the 3G-rollout across India, this scenario is bound to change, he adds, during a recent interaction with eWorld. “Telco operator VAS (value added services) departments are sure to change their strategies and seek more revenue from mobile application deployments.”

Another challenge in India, says Jose, is the present call rate, which makes the business case for VAS difficult for targeting retail and SME (small and medium enterprise) consumers. Hence, the market for mobile applications remains very niche, he notes.

For starters, it may help to know that there are mobility solutions for the large-scale players and the smaller enterprises; there are PIM (Protocol Independent Multicast) deployments, and custom applications for sales force and field force automation, on-site data collection, forms entry, site and equipment inspection, and so on.

Our conversation moves on to a variety of topics, ranging from databases to maturity models, from acquisitions to CIO worries, from business analytics to mobility challenges…

Excerpts from the interview:

What has changed over the years in the database field in which Sybase was one of the early players?

What we have seen in the past few years is an increase in companies that are becoming dependent for revenue on the data. Businesses have gone past the ‘Applications’ phase to a phase where useful, accurate and timely information from the application data is being used to make better business decisions.

Databases also have begun to align with this shift in the customer need. Databases continue to be the heart of transaction processing – but there is a definite shift in focus on providing databases that support superior performance as far as reporting, analytics and data mining are concerned. Sybase continues to remain at the heart of transaction processing for Wall Street companies. In fact, these companies have used our expertise to jointly develop bullet-proof heterogeneous replication as well.

For example, we have a group of customers that we call data aggregators. These companies pull together information that they generate and acquire from multiple sources and offer it for resale.

The key is the sheer volume and the ability to offer data at a very granular and atomic level to a huge number of users who are going to be pounding on the data with queries that you cannot predict. A regular OLTP database collapses. It is not the volume of data but when you are able to ask any question; with a standard database you have to put limits or it takes so long.

Even though most refer to the database as a commodity, the actual reality is that the selection of the wrong technology can mean a really poor return on investment. Sybase has long recognised that different applications, and therefore customers, have different needs for database technology, and the degree of difference cannot be met with a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.

That is the primary reason why Sybase continues to invest research dollars in developing codelines for achieving superior performance in each of the database technologies it possesses. Be it OLTP databases, high growth reporting environments, low latency environments or disconnected usage, Sybase Database Management continues to develop technologies to suit all these environments.

In your long-standing clients do you witness a maturity process, from the perspective of database systems in the enterprise?

a) Most organisations are becoming increasingly heterogeneous in terms of their database infrastructure. Most companies have a mix of relational databases running their applications and transactions. This brings about a crucial need for movement of data between these heterogeneous databases for purposes of data aggregation/reporting/business intelligence/cross application transactions. This requires replication software that can seamlessly move data real time between heterogeneous databases. Sybase Replication Software is a leader in this segment of software.

b) Need for very high availability/business continuity has given rise to a serious demand for databases that deliver 24/7 performance with lower IT operational costs. For example, databases such as the Sybase ASE Cluster Edition using a shared disk architecture, protect application service levels, maximise resource utilisation and maintain low costs of infrastructure.

c) The trend towards use of database more for mining useful accurate information has led to a new category in critical business intelligence databases.