On August 7, Sybase announced a new partnership with HTC. OK, so I am a little behind in terms of commenting on this partnership. I get that, but although I have been more than busy at the office, I still believe that this news is worth my commenting on and hopefully providing some insights. The bottom line is this: I think this is a GREAT move for both companies and will absolutely have a positive impact on the Windows Mobile ecosystem.
HTC certainly leads the market for Windows Mobile devices, but still has a long road in its battle against RIM and the Blackberry. So far, RIM has been on top, given its tremendous success from having understood that mobility is all about "ME" and that messaging starts with ME (get it???). I know, bad joke, but you get the point. RIM has mastered the usability factor for email. Will RIM be able to leverage that lead for overall enterprise mobility? I don't think so.
I've talked about this before, but I firmly believe that one of the greatest inhibitors to explosive growth of enterprise mobility are the carriers who lock their devices and feel as if they know what is best for their customers...as opposed to letting the customers decide what is best for them. This may still work on the consumer side of life, but I believe that true innovation in enterprise mobility will only come when the end-user organizations are fully empowered. The carriers won't do that any time soon because they will then lose all their influence and leverage on the handset manufacturers. This is a point that no handset manufacturer has overlooked. What I am impressed by however, is how aggressive and daring HTC has been in terms of moving to push its own enterprise mobility message and agenda directly to the enterprise. HTC is building a strong message but really needs to provide a complete solution based vision.
This is where Sybase comes in. They have a very strong platform in the iAnywhere solution, but face fierce competition from Nokia, Motorola, and a myriad set of best-of-breed solution providers. This partnership really allows Sybase to step up and out of the crowd to be with "Windows Mobile personified." In fact, what this does is provide Sybase the opportunity to have its iAnywhere applications optimized for HTC devices, thus making them more attractive to enterprises who will already be acquiring HTC devices - either via carriers or other channels.
As an aside, I did a quick search on the web to see how others reacted to this announcement. I was actually surprised at how little coverage this got. In fact, I think this is a bigger deal than people are making it out to be. I guess only time will tell if I am right or not.
