Sybase has been aggressively launching new products in the Data Warehouse (DW) and Business intelligence (BI) space. What are the key technology trends that you see in these areas?
Information is the engine that drives successful organizations. BI is moving beyond simple point systems such as reporting or mining, as today's requirements are better rounded than they were in the past. Customers therefore are looking at BI systems which will integrate directly with their internal business processes in a quick and effective manner. This is currenly driving the need for ready-to-go applications in the market such as managing marketing campaigns, risk management etc.
The reason for this model to succeed is that it is a necessity for the application to fit in with the business process and is planned to be so from day one, rather than an IT project in isolation, which gets retrofitted post implementation.
From an adoption perspective, a strong sentiment that is observed is the need from customers to offload BI tasks from their transactional environments, to increase transactional performance, and improve analytical capabilities and functionalities.
Today, appliances have simplified the complexity of data warehousing while delivering faster query performance. Customers are moving towards demanding a consolidated white-box containing the analytics engine, server and storage technologies, front-end BI tool and a data modeling tool along with the data loader component.

What is your strategy to keep in pace with the above trends? Can you elaborate more on some of the recent additions to your DW and BI product portfolio?
In the DW and the BI space we have been constantly adding more features to our existing database Sybase IQ. Our new version Sybase IQ 15 will be launched this year. The product is a highly optimized analytics server, designed specifically to deliver dramatically faster results for mission-critical business intelligence, data warehouse and reporting solutions on any standard hardware and operating systems.
We have recently launched the Sybase Analytic Appliance which delivers extreme analytics for overburdened enterprise data warehouse systems. Combining various technologies, including Sybase IQ, PowerDesigner, IBM Power Systems and MicroStrategy8 business intelligence technology, the Analytic Appliance gives users all the benefits of a custom-built enterprise data warehouse.
To cater to the challenges of data integration and movement in EDW, we have also launched a newer version of Sybase Data Integration Suite which offers a modular set of technologies (ETL, replication, data federation, search, real time events ) with advanced integrated modeling, development and management tools.

Sybase recently launched a new data modeling tool in India. Kindly brief us about its features and the benefits it that will bring for the Indian customers?
We have launched a data modeling tool called PowerDesigner, which enables enterprises to visualize, analyze and manipulate metadata for effective enterprise information architecture. It combines several standard modeling techniques (UML, Business Process Modeling and market-leading Data Modeling) together with leading development platforms, such as .NET, WorkSpace, PowerBuilder, Java and Eclipse, to bring business analysis and formal database design solutions to the enterprise. It also works with more than 60 relational database management systems.
It is based on an enterprise architecture model to address the latest trends in enterprise world. The aim is to align IT with the organization’s business in a cost effective manner.
The product is relevant for the Indian market because India is doing a lot of offshore development projects. Traditional companies are doing a lot of activities around data modeling, enterprise architecture, SOA, etc. Hence this product is relevant for this market.
It is a horizontal product that can be customized easily. It gives a complete view of the business insight of a company. Data management companies can view every change made not only in the database but also in other areas such as networking, data warehouse, etc. The tool is effective in detecting any failure.

In the database and data modeling space, what are the key challenges faced by Indian CIOs?
In the database area, Indian CIOs pretty much understand the need. They are well aware of the technologies available in the market and they know what technology and product to choose. But as they move forward, CIOs look at high end technologies. The buzz word today is cost reduction. Open source hass been talked a lot about, but India has not embraced it till now. Consolidation is happening on a greater scale and we see that today every solution is hardware centric.
With the IT budgets remaining constant for the past few years, every CIO is facing a huge challenge in reducing the TCO. We keep in mind all these requirements across the globe but our final product is the same across all geographies as we believe that at the end of the day customer needs are more or less the same.
The role of a CIO is changing drastically. He has become a business leader from being a technology leader. The challenge for a CIO today is to be always ready for taking decisions. And the challenge for a technology vendor is to build products that meet business needs.

What is your roadmap for 2009?
In 2009, our focus would be on BI, DW products, mobile computing and data modeling tools. We plan to further build our partner network and encourage partner and customer events across cities. Currently, we have over 40 partners across the country and we intend to increase this number. Our business model is partner focused. We build loyalty programs and incentive programs for our partners to keep them motivated.