Sybase launched new product offerings for the iPhone with an eye toward increasing the smartphone's enterprise functionality. Among the features are administrative policy lockdown control and bidirectional synchronization between iPhone and database. Throughout 2009, Sybase has been increasing its reach in enterprise mobility, porting its offerings onto not only Apple's iPhone, but also BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.Sybase
introduced new product offerings for the iPhone on Nov. 3, including policy
enforcement and database synchronization, designed to help integrate Apples
smartphone more firmly into the enterprise sphere.
The offerings come courtesy of Sybases Afaria 6.5 with iPhone support,
available in mid-November, and SQL Anywhere for iPhone, whose
beta program is now open and can be found at this site. The updated Afaria
provides device management and policy enforcement for the iPhone, while SQL
Anywhere for iPhone brings database and synchronization technology to the
device.
Capabilities of the combined solutions include over-the-air provisioning and
certificate-based policy enforcement; enforceable administrative policy
lockdown control, through passwords, installation restrictions and the like;
accurate compliance reporting; and device authentication to a corporate
directory.
The new database and synchronization features include bidirectional
synchronization between the iPhone and Sybase ASE,
SQL Anywhere, Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 and MySQL databases. In addition,
enterprise-caliber data management and synchronization technologies, designed
to operate in heterogeneous environments without regular on-premises IT
maintenance, have been integrated into the offerings.
Sybase is also offering a mobile banking iPhone
application through the Sybase mBanking 365 platform.
Sybase was motivated to design a more enterprise-robust collection of
features for the iPhone, company executives told eWEEK in an interview, after
internal data suggested that more and more enterprise workers were bringing
their personal devicesmany of which were iPhonesinto a business environment
with the expectation of full functionality.
"We are significantly expanding our iPhone offerings with advanced
enterprise-ready features that are consistent with Apple's direction," Raj
Nathan, senior vice president and CMO of
Sybase, said in a statement. "As an increasing number of consumers bring
personal smartphones into the enterprise, there is a greater need to extend
high levels of application performance, functionality and security to a wider
range of mobile devices."
In June, soon after the launch of Apples iPhone 3G, Sybase announced the
Sybase iAnywhere Mobile Office application for porting wireless e-mail,
calendar, contacts and task information onto the device. The application, which
also worked on smartphones using either the Windows Mobile or Nokia Symbian
operating system, started off by including on-device encryption and push
capabilities.
In addition to the application, Sybase released an iAnywhere Mobile Office
server, available through the App Store at a starting price of $200 per user.
Sybase had previously partnered with Research In Motion, creator of the
BlackBerry line, an unsurprising move, considering both companies focus on the
enterprise market. But Sybases continual positioning of itself within the
iPhone market speaks to the increased prevalence of Apple within the business mobile
device market.
In September, Sybase
announced a partnership with Siemens Enterprise Communications Group, with
the two collaborating on an enterprise platform that integrates both mobile and
fixed-line voice and data, while allowing mobile devices to be managed within a
heterogeneous environment.
Mobile & Wireless 
