Obviously, Sybase is not enough to make SAP entirely relevant in scope and scale (and it goes without saying that in this land of giants, Sybase was not large enough to survive on its own.) But it picks up a solid asset, with businesses in financial modelling and mobile databases that are essential for SAP to stay in the game.

FORBES: SAP's Big Problem

In most cases the core business value chain will need to be opened up by mobile-enabling legacy enterprise applications, transactions, and databases to make core functions available on which to build a set of new mobile-friendly business functions.

FORBES: Time For IT Shops To Get Moving On Enterprise Mobility

The makers of navigation devices and mobile phones are eagerly looking to their databases for new ideas to keep people buying new hardware.

FORBES: On The Road

Traditional relational databases, such as from Oracle (ORCL), were not built for the torrents of data from mobile devices, cloud apps and social networks.

FORBES: RainStor: Riding the Big Data Wave

To sell subscriptions that bundle the Times in print, online and on mobile devices, the Times has had to develop an e-commerce platform that patches together various old and new databases and programs.

WSJ: New York Times Prepares Plan to Charge for Online Reading