Earlier this week iAnywhere rival Intellisync announced plans to add support for the BlackBerry to its Intellisync Mobile Suite, but that offering will not be available until June. Sybase’s iAnywhere has had limited support for the devices since April 2002, but said its expanded support for the BlackBerry is available now.
Sybase’s head of marketing for EMEA, Ketan Karia, said the expanded BlackBerry support enables iAnywhere to do three things for BlackBerry users: to manage BlackBerry devices using its Afaria device management suite; to push mobile applications down to BlackBerry devices instead of just email; and to query enterprise applications using natural language queries on a BlackBerry.
He said end users could choose to use iAnywhere’s middleware to provide BlackBerry users with everything they need, but said companies are likely to continue to use the Research In Motion Blackberry Enterprise Server middleware to provide wireless email to BlackBerry users.
Sybase said mobile workers in a variety of industries such as legal, finance, and insurance, will be able to use BlackBerry devices to access and update information, potentially improving productivity.
Terry Stepien, iAnywhere president, said: Enterprises are realizing that it’s not enough to simply build and deploy mobile applications. It’s equally important to have a full-scale solution to manage and secure vital company information on those mobile devices and applications.
There is still more that is required from iAnywhere’s BlackBerry support, however. Ketan Karia conceded that the company is working on enhancements to its security, remote software deployment, configuration management and version control for mobile applications on the BlackBerry. We are adding more security and so on, so that if you lose your device, you don’t lose your data, said Karia. He said this additional functionality should be available in the second half of this year.
The company said it already has a number of customers using the enhanced ability to mobilize enterprise applications on the BlackBerry via iAnywhere’s mobile middleware. For example, Veritext, the second largest national provider of court-reporting services, uses iAnywhere technology to provide web and email access via BlackBerry to corporate and law firm transcripts, making it easier for attorneys and corporate users to find the information they need, when they need it.
Sybase iAnywhere technology powers BlackBerry users to search their transcript database on-the-go, said Lolly Bak, Veritext CIO, finding key words located in any of their transcripts securely and quickly – in the courtroom, traveling to client meetings, and preparing for litigation.
Although iAnywhere is a subsidiary of Sybase, it does break out some of its figures. In the year to December 31, 2004, it posted sales of $119.3m, and operating income of $12.7m. Sybase’s total sales for the year were $788.5m, with net income of $68m.
