Sybase SQL Server

"Sybase SQL Server" was the name of Sybase Corporation's relational database product.

It was originally created for UNIX platforms in 1987. In 1988, SQL Server for OS/2 was codeveloped for the PC by Sybase, Microsoft, and Ashton-Tate. Ashton-Tate divested its interest and Microsoft became the lead partner after porting SQL Server to MS Windows NT.

Microsoft and Sybase sold and supported the product through version 4.21. In 1993 the codevelopment licensing agreement between Microsoft and Sybase ended and the companies parted ways.

In 1995, Sybase released SQL Server 11.0. Thereafter, it decided to better differentiate its product from Microsoft SQL Server by renaming it to Adaptive Server Enterprise in versions 11.5 and beyond.

Further History... Sybase was founded by Bob Epstein, the architect of a product called the Intelligent Database Machine (IDM) from Britton-Lee. This was a computer that only did relational database. It used IDL as its native language (similar but not identical to SQL). The architecture of that product was used as the starting point for Sybase, which began development from 1984(?). Beta testing of Sybase's first product started in 1986.

Microsoft's SQL Server does not do row level locking properly. This is why when you hear about "hundreds of users" on a server, you learn on investigating that it is an application that manages the connections in a way that no two users are running queries at the same time. Otherwise, the system locks up solid, sometimes for 30 minutes or more. Microsoft sales people lied about this lack of record level locking (right in front of me to an audience). They just figured if they told people they had record level locking, people would believe them. Lots of people do now. But it just does not exist, and a quick experiment on a server can easily prove it. Poor Sybase. They told the truth and the market killed them for it. But of course, they make so many other mistakes, it is hard to care.