AUCKLAND (03/03/2000) - Sybase Inc. will make a strategic investment in the telecommunications services sector in the second half of the year -- coinciding with a beta release of its Telecom Server.
Corporate marketing vice-president Pamela George also indicated at TechWave in Sydney last week that Sybase will make a further investment in the financial services market.
According to financial services company the Tower Group, 68 percent of the financial services market runs on Sybase products.
George wouldn't be more specific about the investments but said they are likely to take the form of partnerships. Sybase recently entered into an equity position in Cygnifi for serving the huge derivatives market. JP Morgan has 51 percent of the company and Sybase 15 percent.
"No one else is doing it in the derivative market," George says.
After some years in a slump, Sybase recently reported its second most profitable year with retained cash of US$353 million. The company is positioning itself as an electronic services provider rather than a point services vendor.
More particularly, its evolving business model is turning into an operating company, George says. For example, it has also taken equity in a trade settlements company, Demica, and another subsidiary, Financial Fusion, will probably list on the Nasdaq exchange in the U.S.
The Financial Server model will be replicated in telecommunications and media, with health to follow. In telecommunications, Sybase will expand on its billing capabilities to provide a multinational marriage of content and delivery.
The company has also identified three areas to track to core technology, George says. One is video streaming but she wouldn't be drawn on the other two.
In Sydney, Sybase announced its Enterprise Portal, which it claims is the first portal of its type to offer non-stop availability.
Sybase defines an enterprise-class portal as managing the integrating of information, whether internal or external to an organization, in a way that the applications have consistent integrity.
The real time and legacy information are integrated.
"The level of integration is unrivaled by any portal, along with powerful collaboration, communication and Internet business capabilities," says Australasian Managing Director Adam Johnson.
Sybase is partnering with a range of application providers which have integrated their solutions into the Enterprise Portal.