The already cheeky Sybase Inc has become even more sure of itself in the welcome shadow of the Microsoft / Ashton-Tate / Sybase accord, and the other day was announcing an Australian subsidiary formed last month; its new Belgium distributor signing a major Belgian bank; a clarification of the Microsoft / Ashton / Sybase strategy; a new French distributor, called Infi, pending a full French launch within 12 months, and the usual spattering of verbal agression against the other relational database vendors. The ink is still drying on the Australian deal, with International vice president John Louth, late of Tandem Computers Europe, dropping into Oz on the lookout for a distributor, and deciding on the spot to accelerate plans and move straight to a direct subsidiary company, coming away with a working operation, to endorse his plan that Sybase International will do at least UKP3m this year, and his own fond hopes that if everything goes to plan, he could do double that. He modestly points out that this would be the fastest ever growth for a UK-based software house. The constant string of good news is very reminiscent of the early days of Lotus optimism and Louth capped it all by revealing three more deals in the UK. The Belgian deal is with Banque Bruxelles Lambert, with a couple of licences sold, and advanced development about to lead to standardisation within the bank for Sybase on VAX and Sun machines. Sybase International has already mentioned its deal with Racal Imaging Systems (CI No 838), but has since added Intercom Data Systems; stockbroker Smith New Court – which built an arbitrage system on Sybase; and Eric Wright Associates, which does media analysis for advertising firms on it. We’re going to sign 10 deals in the UK in the next eight weeks, boasts John Stevens, UK managing director, and we’ll have 50 clients by the end of the year. And if we sign one particular deal we are chasing, we’ll have 20 licences sold, embedded into a single application package.
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