Sybase, Inc. announced it has signed an agreement to acquire the assets of privately held Dejima, a provider of mobile access solutions using natural language interface technology. Sybase intends to integrate the assets of Dejima into its iAnywhere Solutions subsidiary, and expects to complete the cash transaction in the second quarter of 2004. The Dejima product uses natural language processing and adaptive agent technologies to allow end users to interact with information sources using common, colloquial language. Inquiries can be made using nearly any communications method (email, SMS, voice, instant messaging, etc.) or device (landline or mobile phone, PDA, laptop, PC, etc.). Sybase plans to leverage the Dejima technology to add natural spoken and text access through common messaging interfaces to backend systems such as databases and enterprise applications. www.dejima.com, www.sybase.com