SAP Makes Deal With Sybase,
Reducing Reliance on Microsoft

By DAVID BANK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


SAP AG is teaming with Sybase Inc. to offer its business applications to
small companies, reducing the German software company's reliance on
Microsoft Corp., which has long been an SAP partner but increasingly is a
competitor as well.

...

Sybase executives said SAP approached them seeking an alternative database
partner. "Since I never will compete with SAP, this partnership will be
pretty tight," said John Chen, chief executive of Sybase. "I never will do
applications."

Sybase's technology will enable SAP's applications to run on the Unix and
Linux operating systems, in addition to Microsoft's Windows software.
Microsoft's SQLServer database works only with Windows. "Small to
medium-sized customers are looking for a Linux or Unix alternative," said
Marty Beard, Sybase's senior vice president of corporate development and
marketing. "A lot of the growth for enterprise software is in small and
medium and that's because of Linux."

...

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