FYI:
Big Steps For Small Footprint Databases
-- Sat, 27 Mar 1999 01:02 EST
Mar. 26, 1999 (InternetWeek - CMP via COMTEX) -- Sybase Inc. and
Oracle are pushing the small, mobile database-and even smaller embedded
database-onto a big stage.
Market leader Sybase last week announced the April release of Sybase
UltraLite, a small-footprint deployment version of the company's
flagship client/server mobile database, Adaptive Server Anywhere. Now
in beta, UltraLite will ship on both Microsoft Windows CE and 3Com
Palm-OS operating systems. It will add bidirectional synchronization
that lets it work with any enterprise database that has an ODBC
interface.
Depending on configuration, UltraLite can be as small as 50 KB,
according to Sybase.
Like the rival Oracle Lite small-footprint database, Sybase's
UltraLite features a Java virtual machine, which provides a single
platform for executing both database and Java code.
Earlier this month, Sun Microsystems and Sybase announced a joint
marketing alliance around Sybase's SQL Anywhere and UltraLite, and
Sun's Java and Jini technologies. Sun officials said they hoped to
announce similar pacts with other database companies.
With an eye toward seeing its databases used in simple appliances for
the workplace, factory and home, Sybase last month inked a joint
marketing deal with real-time operating system leader Wind River
Systems Inc.
Interest in mobile databases-which typically are delivered by
software companies as part of specialized applications such as sales
force automation-may rise among IT shops, said Aberdeen Group analyst
Wayne Kernochan.
"It's possible that once Y2K projects are behind them, there may be a
movement toward developing more [mobile database] applications in-house,
" he said.
Illustrating the attention database vendors are paying to mobile
databases, Oracle two weeks ago at the CeBit show debuted a technology,
code-named Project Panama, for simplifying the interface between
wireless systems.
Oracle's server-side converter, which sits atop its Oracle8i database
and the Oracle Application Server, will convert an HTML or XML Web
application to a format usable by an array of portable devices.
While Panama does not require any client-side code, Denise Lahey,
vice president of Oracle's mobile and embedded products group,
confirmed that the company is looking at a second release that will use
the Oracle Lite database on the client.
Panama is being piloted by Oracle, Scandinavian telecommunications
provider Telia Mobile and mobile phone maker Nokia. A U.S. pilot is
expected this summer.
--
Databases On The Move
- The mobile database market was $52 million in 1998
- It will see a compound annual growth rate of 39 percent through 2003
- Sybase's SQL Anywhere Studio-the market leader for the past three
years-had 55 percent of the market in 1998
Source: Dataquest
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By: Ellis Booker
Copyright 1999 CMP Media Inc.
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