Adaptive Server Enterprise

#@database (ASE) The relational database management system

that started life in the mid-eighties [first release?] as

"Sybase SQL Server". For a number of years Microsoft was a

Sybase distributor, reselling the Sybase product for OS/2

and (later) Windows NT under the name "Microsoft SQL

Server".

Around 1994, Microsoft basically bought a copy of the sourcecode of Sybase SQL Server and then went its own way. As

competitors, Sybase and Microsoft have been developing their

products independently ever since. Microsoft has mostly

emphasised ease-of-use and "Window-ising" the product, while

Sybase has focused on maximising performance and reliability,

and running on high-end hardware.

When releasing version 11.5 in 1997, Sybase renamed its

product to "ASE" to better distinguish its database from

Microsoft's. Both ASE and MS SQL Server call their query

language "Transact-SQL" and they are very similar.

Sybase SQL Server was the first true client-server RDBMS

which was also capable of handling real-world workloads. In

contrast, other DBMSs have long been monolithic programs; for

example, Oracle only "bolted on" client-server functionality

in the mid-nineties. Also, Sybase SQL Server was the first

commercially successful RDBMS supporting stored procedures

and triggers, and a cost-based query optimizer.

As with many other technology-driven competitors of Microsoft,

Sybase has lost market share to MS's superior marketing,

though many consider it has the superior system.

.

(2003-07-02)