Interview with Edison: Sybase "Three Carriages" without fear of financial storms

[Zdnet Li Ning exclusive report]A us financial storm comparable to the one in spread to the world by the end. The news that major and foreign software vendors have lowered their performance expectations and even laid off their jobs is widely seen in various media.

 

In September, what policies did software manufacturers adopt to cope with the cold winter of it? With this question in mind, on the afternoon of June 14, I came to Sybase China's headquarters in Beijing and interviewed Mr. tokubase of Sybase, senior vice president of Sybase Asia Pacific and general manager of Greater China, he is familiar with Sybase's business development. We talked about the impact of financial storm on Sybase and the new sybase09 strategy.

InfrastructureSybase, senior vice president of Asia Pacific and general manager of Greater China

Sybase08's financial performance is not accidental

In this conversation, Mr. tokuai first presented the sybase08 annual earnings report. The total revenue for the year increased by 10% during the same period, and the revenue in the fourth quarter was more than $0.3 billion. This is the first time that Sybase's quarterly revenue has exceeded $0.3 billion. How should we interpret this financial report? It is also an accident whether such performance is under the financial storm. The impact of the financial storm was hard to predict at the beginning of, but the sybase08 report said it was not accidental. We are proud of Sybase's great adjustment in the business model in.

 

First, we mean Sybase customers. In the past, the main revenue sources of Sybase were fixed to several major accounts, so that sybae's performance was easily affected by several customers. Currently, Sybase has opened up more new customers, the revenue source is more even, so that even if the business of some customers changes, the impact on Sybase is not very great.

 

Second, we will diversify our product lines. Originally, Sybase only used several products. Currently, Sybase has divided the product line into three carriages-data management, business intelligence, and mobile commerce. More Products mean more markets.

 

Financial storm provides Sybase with more opportunities

I believe that any vendor will not ignore the impact of the financial storm, especially the chill of the financial storm in the 09 years. Many vendors have lowered their performance expectations for 1.13 billion, but Sybase has set a performance target of 1.14 billion US dollars for their own year, which is US dollars. Mongozuki told me that the financial turmoil has indeed led many customers to cut their budgets and make more careful investments, but this is exactly an opportunity for Sybase.

 

When the budget is not tight, the customer may not consider that much, and the procurement in the new year will continue the previous selection. But now it is different. Many customers will check whether each investment is worthwhile and whether there is a better choice. Therefore, more customers will begin to consider Sybase.

 

At the same time, Edison said that the financial storm also made Sybase's partners more effort. They will now take the initiative to discuss with Sybase how to do their business in, sybase products will also help them. Therefore, Sybase partners are also an important part of helping Sybase defend against the financial crisis.

 

In addition, the financial storm also enables more customers to help them solve specific problems. This is also a formal advantage of Sybase. Hit base indicates that risk analytics platform, a financial-oriented "Risk Management" Product launched in sybase08, has a very good customer response.

In, the three carriages will go hand in hand

In, many manufacturers chose to reduce their business and retain their core product lines. In my opinion, in Sybase "Three Carriages", data management, that is, its database has been around for more than 20 years, and its development has slowed down, sybase's product advantages are not obvious, but the other two "business intelligence and mobile commerce" items in the "Trigger" are the highlights of Sybase, so in, will the "Three Carriages" consider development with different emphasis? The three carriages will definitely go hand in hand. Although the trigger is an independent product line, it can be provided to Sybase customers separately, but more importantly, they can be flexibly combined. The core of the combination is "data". Using the "Trigger", we can provide Sybase customers with data management, data analysis, and front-end security data presentation, end-to-End complete solution.

 

Ma zuoji revealed that there will also be new content provided to customers in the "Three Carriages" in, for example, in terms of business intelligence, Sybase IQ 15 will officially meet Chinese users in. In terms of business mobile computing, sybase will cooperate with China's telecom operators in the form of OEM to provide basic technical platforms. As a result, the customer may not find out, but Sybase is actually providing technical support.

 

It was too early to talk about 3G in, and our positioning was very clear.

Mobile commerce is an important part of Sybase's "Three Carriages. Not long ago, Sybase had just acquired a paybox, a mobile payment company and included it under Sybase 365, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sybase. We can also see Sybase's interest in the mobile computing market in. China's telecom industry has just issued a 3G license, marking the official move of its mobile business to 3G. So how does Sybase look at China's 3G market opportunities? I was told by Edison that 3G has just started in China and the basic technology platform for 3G business development is very important. However, this is not enough, the key is to support 3G applications and 3G devices, so this requires the promotion of the entire mobile industry. Sybase has its own clear positioning here. Sybase will focus on the technical data platform layer.

Continue to increase product R & D and localization in

R & D costs are a small cost for each vendor. Will Sybase consider compressing this investment in? The benchmark indicates a company like Sybase. product innovation is an important support for the company's performance guarantee, so Sybase will not. And will not cut down the relevant departments. In addition, we will increase R & D efforts in China. We will divide Sybase product R & D into many small pieces. Chinese R & D personnel will truly participate in product R & D across the world, this is not just for product testing, or simply localization, but also the biggest difference between us and other software vendors.

I remember that at the User Conference in Greater China in, the president of Sybase's Global Operations said that in the face of the economic crisis, it is like driving in the strong wind and snow, it will not go fast, but it is still moving forward. Although this interview was my first face-to-face contact with Dr. Kuang, I was deeply impressed by a dynamic professional manager, when talking about the dramatic changes in data storage, he talked about the 120g iPod he just bought, in the past, it was hard for an enterprise to think of such a large amount of data. We hope that the vitality of the benchmark will drive Sybase's "Three Carriages" to continue in the face of the financial storm in.