DACS General Meeting
October 2008
Program Review:
Raymond Yost - Mobile iAnywhere Technology

by Sean N. Henderson

DACS General Meetings tend to fall into two categories, topic wise. One type is the “how-to” presentation that shows attendees a new piece of software, hardware or technique they can employ directly. The other type of presentation is where the presenter is speaking about a technology that affects our lives. Raymond Yost of Sybase iAnywhere gave the latter sort, and treated us all to a glimpse of what's to come for our collective mobile experience.

Mr Yost started out the presentation soliciting from the crowd what type of portable devices they use – whether “just” a cell phone, or a type of smart phone. Missing from the discussion of devices was the plain-old PDA. On later slides showing varied portable devices, those using PalmOS were excluded, though the Palm Treo was shown. No one in the audience brought up or appeared to notice this. During the Q&A period following, there was discussion regarding AvantGo, which was initially used on PDAs.

Mr Yost then went on to poll how many people would like to receive their email on such devices. The response from the crowd on this indicated that people would rather not, which gave Mr Yost a chuckle. He then went on to illustrate how Sybase's mobile technology would enable the 24/7 professional. The benchmark device to which he referenced as baseline functionality was the corporate-style Blackberry RIM devices, which primarily (solely?) focus on cell phone and email. Other devices mentioned were the remote tracking devices carried by UPS delivery people, and non-handheld-but-portable devices such as credit-card enabled vending machines.

The solution his company is addressing is when corporate managers are looking to get more and leverage such portable devices. The problem is the myriad of device types, operating systems, and specs a developer would have to consider to develop applications for broad deployment.

New PDAs, phones, and other portable solutions appear on the market so quickly that it makes management and delivery daunting. His slides went on to tell how developers for nearly any type of application could hold off on device-specific coding till the final stages using Mobile iAnywhere Technology, which would allow focusing on the application and data-related functionality first, and that it sits after the IDE (Integrated Developer Environment). He explained that the developer package was based on two major developer camps (.Net and Java) with support also for regular Web developers.

Mr. Yost then went on to explain how today's unwired enterprise stays connected and how the Information Anywhere Suite provides the key components for email, collaboration, application enablement, secured proprietary data access, and asset security. Part of this will be using protocols other than HTTP, but using HTTP as a fallback, to give the use more of a connected feel even when crossing in-and-out-of various networks.

Benefits of these types of technologies are that account managers can visit clients across town without dragging a laptop with them. Doctors can roam around the medical campus with a PDA instead of clipboard and files. A warehouse manager can add new stock from a coffee house using merely a phone. And, while all that is occurring, administrators and application developers can keep track of devices, secure the data, and selectively enable services for users or groups.
Questions from the audience were direct and on-topic, and answered knowledgeably, and ranged from questions about AvantGo (an acquisition of Sybase) to wanting more explanations about how the always-connected feel is achieved. Mr. Yost is the Principal Systems Consultant, Frontline Solutions. Sybase is one of the largest global services companies which are poised to keep businesses connected with their information anytime, anywhere, and on any device.