Something’s finally given over at Sybase Inc, currently waist deep in blood and red ink. Co-founder Mark Hoffman’s been bumped off the wheel – Powersoft founder and CEO Mitchell Kertzman takes the reins as president and CEO. Hoffman, in charge for over a decade, remains chairman. Is this the end of Sybase as a serious database company? No, but the next couple of quarters will be crucial, especially in light of new Gartner Group numbers which say Informix has moved ahead of Sybase and is now number two in Unix databases behind Oracle. It’s got to get the mindshare back somehow too. Only a couple of weeks ago our software-watchers at a Sybase pow-wow in Massachusetts were left with the impression that the Californians seem to think the Bostonians around Kertzman have written the book on turnaround marketing. That’s as far from proven as saying Sybase is dead in the water, as Oracle and Informix are telling anyone who picks up the phone, they told us. But marketing isn’t enough – you also need good technology and aggressive selling – and let’s hope those sides of the business aren’t being neglected in favor of the Kertzman Fix. Now Sybase has to find someone to replace Kertzman as marketing chief.
