Sybase commonly refers to Adaptive Server Enterprise, the flagship relational database system developed by Sybase, Inc. It is also used to refer to the company itself. Sybase was a developer of the pioneering Ingres system that also led to Informix and NonStop SQL, as well as the majority of other SQL systems currently in use. Sybase was traditionally the #2 database system behind Oracle, though it suffered a major downturn in fortune in the later half of the 1990s when Informix started outselling it by a wide margin. Today Informix is no longer there (having been bought by IBM). As judged by revenue, IBM has taken the lead in the overall database market with Oracle a close second. The #3 position is occupied by Sybase's own offspring, Microsoft SQL Server. Today Sybase is well behind its major competitors, with less than 10% market share.
Sybase has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, California, and trades on the NYSE under the symbol SY.
