Enterprise mobility and mobile messaging were key themes at Sybase's recent analystevent, as executives from CEO John Chen downward  continued to champion the vendor's Unwired Enterprise strategy, announced last August.John Chen, CEO of database-software and -services provider Sybse, told analysts during an informal Q&A session at Sybase's recent analyst event in New York that the company's two mobile businesses, iAnywhere and Sybase 365, should between them generate US$400-500 million in revenues in 2009,which would comprise just under half of the company's expected total revenue of US$1.1 billion. This should finally lay to rest any skepticism expressed by those in the IT-software industry about Sybase's decisions to focus part of its business on mobility and to purchase Mobile 365 in 2006. "In a very short time span,we have achieved a lot," Chen said. "We have been able to convince enterprise to use messaging as a platform, and we have been very successful." Sybase's strong financial performance in the past couple of years would seem to indicate that the company's customers and partners find its approach palatable. The company has consistently exceeded its own guidance for the past nine or 10 quarters, Chen said, adding that in 1Q09 it experienced the strongest first quarter in its 25-year history, with total revenues of US$267.5 million, including mobile messaging revenues of US$43.3 million (16.2% of total revenues). Sybase also had an extremely strong cash position at end-March, with US$708.5 million in reserve."We like generating cash," Chen said. He was optimistic about the prospects for Sybase's mobile business, telling analysts that the company's mobile revenues could double within five years and ultimately reach well into the billions. "It is not beyond the realms of possibility that we could be standing here [one day] talking about a US$10 billion mobile business," he added, though he did not give a time frame for when that scenario might come to fruition. But managing the growth of its mobile business is going to be a key challenge for the company and one in which Sybase will probably need to invest some of its hard-earned cash.A case in point is a significant contract for Sybase 365's messaging services,which is close to completion, Chen said. "We have to make sure that we have the infrastructure to deliver it," he said. "In this case we are  comfortable, and we are going to invest in that, because the deal is pretty much there." It also seems likely that Sybase's recent run of acquisitions in the mobile sector will continue. In January the company acquired mobile-payments-platform provider Paybox, and in July it bought Cable & Wireless' MMS hubbing business and signed a global partnership deal with Cable & Wireless for its GPRS Roaming Exchange (GRX). Chen told analysts that Sybase should be in acquisition mode, particularly in the areas of mobility and analytics. Investing in analytics, IPX hub

In the meantime, however, Sybase 365 is already developing a messaging-focused analytics application, Traffic Analytics, based on the Sybase IQ analytics platform and partner MicroStrategy's business-intelligence software. This development is part of Sybase's strategy to enable Sybase 365 to host an array of enterprise applications that would use its messaging infrastructure as a delivery mechanism. The beta version of Traffic Analytics will be made commercially available to mobile operators as a managed service in 3Q09, said Marty Beard, president of Sybase 365, adding that by end-2009 the service should have one or two operator customers. "Operators have been asking for more slicing and dicing," Beard told Informa Telecoms & Media. "We are not looking to go head-to-head with the traditional business-intelligence players. We want to add value as a messaging provider."Sybase 365's global messaging-connectivity business comprises five hubs, providing SMS connectivity to about 730 mobile operators and MMS connectivity to 250 mobile operators.In 2008, Sybase 365 processed 210 billion SMSes across its network. An additional 500 mobile operators also connect with Sybase 365 for GPRS roaming, taking its total addressable subscription base to 3.4 billion in 181 countries. The division's revenues are split evenly between mobile operators and enterprise customers,with 65% of total revenues generated outside of the US. Bill Dudley, Sybase 365's group director for product management, told analysts that there is still room for the company to expand its messaging business both in the US and outside it. In the US, the penetration of mobile subscriptions and SMS, at about 88% and 60%, respectively, is still below that of mature markets in Western Europe,where the corresponding figures are about 100% and 75-80%. Outside of the US, Sybase 365 sees growth opportunities in converting messaging-connectivity routes between mobile operators from bilateral arrangements, between two operators only, to hub-based or one-to-many connections. In addition, mobile operators are continuing to add routes, and international SMS traffic continues to grow. In 2008, global intercarrier SMS traffic totaled 1.4 trillion messages, with about 1.1 trillion of those messages delivered through bilateral agreements between mobile operators and the remaining 321.3 billion carried via hubs. That disparity represents an opportunity for companies such as Sybase 365.There is still no realistic replacement for SMS or even MMS on the horizon, Dudley added. "If you look at instant messaging, e-mail or even social networking, they don't have the ubiquity and the reach to replace messaging," he said. But mobile operators and companies such as Sybase 365 still need to plan for IP-based communications, including SMS, voice, MMS, e-mail, instant messaging and presence, and social networking. However, using the open Internet to transport messaging and voice traffic over IP is not going to be an option for those operators and enterprise customers that are seeking to enable security and prioritization of messaging, and this is what Sybase 365 hopes to address with its IPX 365 hub,which is scheduled for launch later in 2009.Dudley describes the IPX 365 hub as pure IP hub and an evolution from the company's GRX infrastructure, which means that it will enable a number of IP-based services, initially including data roaming,MMS, voice-over-IP, SIGTran signaling and some SIP-based services, such as Rich Communications Suite. Eventually even SMS will be SIP-based, Dudley says. Sybase 365 is also installing a number of new peering points, including hubs in Singapore and the US, which will be instrumental in helping the company to deliver its IPX services.

Enterprise messaging spreads

Meanwhile, an increasing number of enterprises are using mobile messaging to market, sell and better serve their customers, Beard told analysts. Initially, Sybase 365's enterprise customer base was made up of mobile content providers and banks; customers from other industries have since joined the mix, including retailers, equipment manufacturers and social networks. For example, social network Facebook is the company's largest application-messaging customer in the US, says Beard, with Sybase 365 providing both SMS and MMS connectivity. "[Social networking] is the category that we see as really good potential for us but, likea lot of things in messaging, it is getting more price-competitive," he told Informa. Handset vendor Nokia is also using Sybase 365's connectivity services to help educate its customers about the features on their devices, across multiple markets and mobile operators. The vendor has found that when mobile users purchase a device, typically they play with the new capabilities on that device in the first few weeks of ownership and thenrevert to using the features they are familiar with,which are usually voice, SMS and MMS. Nokia now sends these customers a series of messages to try to get them to continue using the new features. Mobile banking and payments is another area Sybase 365 is focusing on. The company has for some time offered an array of services to enable financial institutions to introduce mobile banking, but last year it won 30 new mobile banking customers, says Beard, most of which are offering messaging-based services. "A lot of banks tried WAP and downloadable clients and realized that at the end of the day it is easier to do by SMS," Beard says. Again, a differentiator for Sybase has been its ability to provide connectivity in multiple countries, with multiple operators, for companies such as Citibank, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank. The acquisition of Paybox has also moved Sybase 365 firmly into the mobile payments market, as it works on building its mobile commerce offering. Sybase 365 has eight business models for mobile commerce, around each of which it is running live services for mobile operators and financial institutions in both emerging and more mature markets, says Haridas Nair, the company's vice president of m-commerce products. Mobile banking customers include Compass Bank US, Mexico's IXE and Citi, for which it has instituted a multicountry deployment. Mobile payments customers include German cellcos Vodafone and O2, all of the Austrian mobile operators (under the brand Paybox Austria), MoneyBoxAfrica and the Royal Bank of Canada, while Vodafone Egypt, Celcom Malaysia and Chile's RedFacil are all using Sybase 365 to enable mobile top-ups in their markets. In Germany, Vodafone and O2 have partnered to launch the mPass mobile payments service, which Sybase 365 is hosting and managing and for which it takes a share of the revenues from the per-transaction fees charged to mPass users. The cellcos' postpaid subscribers can opt in to the service using their mobile phones, and all other subscribers can sign up online. The fees vary from 1% to 8% of the transaction value amount, with typically a minimum charge of €0.10-0.20 (US$0.14-0.28) per  transaction. About 5,000 merchants in Germany have already signed up to mPass, and mPass and Paybox Austria will eventually link up, says Nair, because about 40% of the Austrian population also shops in Germany.

Mobility wins business globally

Meanwhile, Sybase has also won a number of customers for its enterprise mobility products, which include Afaria (mobile-device-management and -security software), Mobile Office (including e-mail and personal-information management), SQL Anywhere (mobile database access) and the Sybase Unwired Platform (mobile enterprise applications). For example, the Chinese government recently certified the co-branded E-Secure Anywhere database that Sybase developed in partnership with Chinese technology company East Port,which means that the database can be deployed within those entities with specific security requirements - chiefly government agencies. E-Secure Anywhere will be offered initially to about 350,000 customs and imports agents, said Terry Stepien, president of Sybase iAnywhere. Harris Corp. and Accenture are using a number of Sybase's enterprise mobility products, including Afaria and SQL Anywhere, to help the US government make its preparations for Census 2010. Stepien told analysts that the project involved the rollout of 140,000 handheld devices and the relevant software to Census agents,who are required to go from door to door to verify residential address details.Meanwhile, in Germany, Veilig Mobiel and T-Systems have partnered to provide a managed mobility service that includes Sybase's device-management and -security software, and in France, a large oil-and-gas company has deployed Mobile Office to about 1,000 iPhones,which are being used by the firm's executives. Sybase has also recently cemented partnerships with IT-services provider Samsung SDS and rival database vendor SAP. Samsung SDS has partnered with Sybase to develop its Enterprise Mobile Service, using the Unwired Platform to provide a range of cloud-based mobility services to its enterprise customers. "Smaller companies have a harder time to justify investment for mobilization," said Seung An Park, Samsung SDS' executive vice presidentfor research and business development, speaking to analysts at the Sybase event. "We believe we can solve this problem." Meanwhile, SAP and Sybase announced in March that they would work together to enable SAP's software to be delivered to mobile devices.

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