Devices using Symbian Plc’s EPOC operating system will move into territory held by Palmpilots and Windows CE machines with the forthcoming release of mobile databases from Sybase Inc, Oracle Corp and others. Sybase has released a beta of its SQL Anywhere Studio for the operating system, which will be demonstrated on smartphone and communicator-style devices at the EPOC developers conference in London today.
The software will include the UltraLite client for what the company calls constricted memory devices and the MobiLink sychronization software. Shirley Macbeth, product marketing manager for Sybase’s mobile and embedded database systems division, said that the client could link into any back end database with a compatible ODBC (open database connectivity) data source. This includes databases from Sybase, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. The client can be configured so that it only takes up 50k in memory, Macbeth said. Security is an issue for many large companies, unnerved by sensitive data between mobile devices and corporate servers. Macbeth said that there were some security routines encoded in the software and Sybase was working with wireless vendors and cell-phone manufacturers on security issues. Macbeth would not give a timescale for the general availability of SQL Anywhere.
Sybase is not alone in eyeing Symbian as profitable ground for the mobile database industry. Oracle said last year that it would port its Lite database to EPOC by the first half of this year. In the UK, Purple Software Ltd is readying a new version of its Powerbase relational database for Symbian-powered devices. IBM is the only major mobile database vendor that has not yet committed to EPOC.
If mobile databases are successful on the Symbian platform, both Palm Computing and Microsoft are likely to lose market share to the wireless pretender in areas where the palmtop traditionally rules such as sales force automation and remote data entry. Christopher Moseley, marketing and communications manager at Symbian, said that Symbian was not competing solely with Microsoft and Palm but also Hewlett-Packard Co and others. Symbian and Sybase are initially targeting the financial, healthcare and industrial sectors.
