Sybase Moves ASE Database to the Mac

On the same day Apple Computer Inc. introduced its Xserve server line, the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker gained some additional enterprise support from Sybase Corp. and its relational database software.

Sybase Tuesday announced that it would ship a version of its Adaptive Server Enterprise 12.5 for the Mac OS X in the third quarter of this year. The move is a follow-up to a January announcement where Sybase indicated it was working on a Mac version.

Sybase isnt stopping just with OS support. Its ASE database also will support applications developed in Apples WebObject development framework, said Tom Traubitz, senior marketing manager for ASE, in Dublin, Calif.

“We saw a market need that could be jointly served by our customers, and this was a technological need that fitted well with Sybase,” he said.

Sybase is targeting the Mac version of ASE to customers in the publishing and content management, science and biotechnology, and educational markets, Traubitz said.

Pricing for the Mac version has not been set, but Traubitz said that it would be comparable to pricing for ASE on other platforms such as Microsoft Windows.

While customers could run ASE without Apples new Xserve, Traubitz said the Mac OS version of ASE would “primarily serve the kind of customer who would use the Xserve.” In particular, he said, the Xserve adds high-bandwidth I/O handling that is important for running enterprise-class databases.