Re: Informix Directions

In article <6bfu2t$rr7$1@agate.berkeley.edu>, Paul Brown wrote: >Michael Segel (mikey@segel.NO.SPAM.KINGOFMYDOMAIN.SPAM.NO.com) wrote: >: Informix loses sales because they do not convey trust. > > IFMX loses sales for lots of reasons. Sometimes it's trust. Sometimes > it's financials. Sometimes it's simply that the check-signer wants > to CHA and go with the market leader. Informix lost quite a few sales in my company simply because they never bothered to communicate with us. I.e., we bought LivewirePro and Informix *NEVER* followed up on that for additional sales. I downloaded stuff from Informix's server and that was never followed up with sales/marketing email. I can understand Informix not offering free support with LivewirePro. But how about paid support? We couldn't BUY support or tools. IFMX considers LWPro to be a limited release/development product? Fine. How abount selling me an upgrade to OWS? I had to chase my sales critter (intraware) to sell me OWS because I didn't want to violate the LWPro license and I needed Perl/DBI access to Ifmx. I dind't say IFMX had to drop the price on OWS to get my money, but it would have been nice to know what server I needed before I bought one. I still don't know whether OWS will support multiple CPUs, or what all I lose in switching from ODS to OWS. Kinda hard to get mgmt to sign off on a $30K PO for ODS vs. $6K for OWS when I can't even tell what the features are. IFMX's website is utterly useless. OTOH, I downloaded Oracle's workgroup server 2 years ago. Every few weeks, I get email from them detailing all the new stuff, promotions, etc. >: There is a FUD factor. And Informix can't beat that. >: Oracle competes against Informix based on two things: >: 1) FUD >: 2) End to End solutions. Informix doesn't have the Professional >: Services staff in place to do that. Sybase does. Oracle does. >: Informix needs to. > > Informix has the *product*. Oracle doesn't. Sybase doesn't. Informix has product, but no marketing or support brains. Our Netscape upgrades came in and one of them came with Oracle Lite. Within 1 week, I had email from ORCL listing my support, migration, documentation and tools options. Oh, and ORCL supports PERL. IFMX's website doesn't even have links to DBI, and John Leffler now works at VISA. I'm hoping DBD-informix development continues or IFMX gives me better access to my data. Otherwise, my next database is going to be Oracle...and I've got $ 100,000 waiting to be spent. ========= << raj >> == http://www.brainlink.com/~frostbit/ ============== SYSADMIN: BrainLINK System (718) 805-6559 // http://www.brainlink.com You want to be president? Yes. Put your hand on the book and say "I Do." I Do. Fine, done. Let's eat. - G'Kar & Sheridan ============================================================================