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Sybase Inc. is a pioneering software company specializing in relational database management systems and database-related products. "Sybase" is also commonly used to refer to Adaptive Server Enterprise, the company's flagship relational database system. Sybase's original architects were Dr. Robert Epstein and Tom Haggin who both had worked at Briton-Lee and the University of California - Berkeley Computer Sciences Department.
Developed at UC-Berkeley was the pioneering "University Ingres" relational databases system that led to Briton-Lee, Sybase, Ingres (Computer Associates) Informix (IBM) and NonStop SQL (Tandem), as well as the majority of other SQL systems currently in use.
Sybase became the #2 database system behind Oracle, after making a deal with Microsoft to share the source code for Microsoft to remarket on the OS-2 platform as "SQL Server". At the time, Sybase called the database server "Sybase 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 of), 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 (TSQL) procedural language as well as the basic process architecture. The big difference is that Sybase has a UNIX heritage, while Microsoft sprung from that original Unix architecture and was adapted and optimized only for the Microsoft Windows NT OS. Sybase continues to offer versions for UNIX and Windows operating systems.
Sybase suffered a major downturn in fortune in the latter half of the 1990s when Informix started outselling it by a wide margin. Today Informix is no longer an independent company (having been bought by IBM). As judged by revenue, IBM has taken the lead in the overall database market with Oracle a close second. The #3 position is occupied by Sybase's own offspring, Microsoft SQL Server. Today Sybase is well behind its major competitors in the enterprise database market, with less than 10% market share. Sybase has recently returned to profitablity under the management of John Chen, 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 and combines technology from Sybase's existing data management products with its new mobility products. Sybase has expanded into the mobile and wireless space through buyouts of smaller networking and wireless companies, such as AvantGo, and expansion into the Asia market, specifically China. Through its mobility subsidiary, launched in 2000, iAnywhere Solutions, Sybase has became the leader of the mobile database market with SQL Anywhere Studio.
Sybase makes a number of other data management products including Sybase IQ, a data warehouse system, Powerbuilder a client-server and n-tier application development system, m-Business Server, a mobile applications system based on the AvantGo service, and Replication Server, a vendor-neutral data movement system.
Sybase has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, California, and trades on the NYSE under the symbol SY.
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