Microsoft's new SQL Server 2000 Windows CE Edition will face its staunchest competition from Sybase, which nailed down 61 percent of last year's mobile database market, according to numbers from Gartner Group's Data quest. But Oracle and IBM will be tough players, as well, notes Jon Rubin, a Gartner analyst.
Primarily used in "occasionally connected" vertical apps like sales-force automation, customer-relationship management and warehouse distribution, products in the category provide a small, separate database for use on mobile devices ranging from cell phones, PDAs and pagers to full-blown notebooks.
With most apps, users update info from time to time by synchronizing the mobile database with a second database, running either on a server or desktop PC. Synchronization can be done over either wired or wireless networks, as well as through serial or UDB desktop connections.
Sybase and Oracle were the first to get their feet wet, sweeping into the market almost simultaneously four years ago. Since then, Sybase has made mobile databases a top priority, along with vertical markets like finance, telecom and retail.
IBM, a more recent entrant, benefits from close integration of its mobile database and the rest of its middleware family. The most recent addition to IBM's WebSphere middleware lineup, released last week, is WebSphere Voice Server.
But Microsoft, a relative latecomer with its mobile database, still stands a considerable chance in this promising but still immature market. "This industry has yet to undergo any real shakeout," Rubin says.
Chris Kleisath, director of engineering at Sybase, points to the progress Sybase has made by dedicating so many re sources to a mobile edition. Supporting synchronization with multiple vendors' databases, Sybase's iAnywhere mobile database operates on devices that run the gamut from Palm to Symbian.
Sybase has forged partnerships for the mini database with more than 500 OEMs, as well as with software vendors ranging from Sun to Linux start-ups.
In some ways, Microsoft's product resembles initial offerings from Sybase and Oracle. As its name suggests, the Windows CE Edition runs on one mobile platform only, said Jeff Ressler, lead project manager at Microsoft. In place of wide-ranging database connectivity, Microsoft is drumming up tight integration with its own enterprise database.
But Microsoft also is partnering on hard ware/software bundles with OEMs such as Symbol and Intermec. The databases may be small, but the stakes aren't.
Mini Targets
- Cell Phones: First prize is control of back-end wireless servers.
- PDAs: The goal is ownership of database market for all PCs, servers.
- Pagers: The network is huge, but will the installed base upgrade?
