Re: Company thought DB2 will be better than Oracle.

Larry, Neil, Have you ever met? I know you're both on your toes and I think you're both right in your ways. Neil is right that executive briefings have the same believability rating as any salespitch. And Larry is right that things are different when you talk to the technical team. We developers are the ones who have to follow up, so we hate overselling. I saw Neil at the Toronto Infobahn. Would have been time better invested to meet the team doing the job upstairs. Cheers Serge "Larry Edelstein" <lsedels@us.ibm.com> wrote in message news:3F6C5AB7.11CDAFBA@us.ibm.com... > Neil, > > I can respect your attitude on briefings. That's fair enough. But I believe that > the people in Toronto who do IBM DB2 briefings have nothing but the highest > integrity...and I firmly believe that if it is possible to execute their plans > (remember ... business drivers change in the I/T world), they will. I have sat > through them and listened to plans on a procedural SQL language (years back) and > a GUI-based stored-procedure builder ... and it happened. This is just one > example. And it happened because IBM customers came to them and told them that > it had to be added into the product. There have been numerous other features > added into DB2 that have been spoken about beforehand in briefings. > > I disagree with your statement on Oracle and SQLServer gaining the Informix > customers. Perhaps you are in the UK, where there might be more of that. But I > have at least two customers in the NYC area who are moving to DB2 instead of > Oracle from Informix (two out of two Informix customers that I have, actually). > > Larry Edelstein > > Neil Truby wrote: > > > "Larry Edelstein" <lsedels@us.ibm.com> wrote in message > > news:3F65B2D3.FC4C3F4F@us.ibm.com... > > > As has been the pattern with your appends, they are complete > > > misrepresentations and demonstrate that you are terribly misinformed. You > > need > > > an IBM software briefing. Technology from Informix products is being > > > integrated and shared within the IBM Data Management family. Give it time. > > > > As per Lord Birkenhead when he was addressing the Court of Appeal. The > > presiding judge said, with that acerbic edge to his voice which judges > > reserve for the task of cutting counsel down to size, "Your argument leaves > > me none the wiser". Lord Birkenhead looked up at the wizened and > > septuagenarian judge and replied "Maybe not wiser, my Lord, but hopefully > > better informed." > > > > And in this case, you may not think I'm wise, but I am very well-informed. > > I sit on the Board of Directors of the International Informix Users Group > > and have thereby sat through endless IBM briefings on the future of Informix > > under IBM. > > > > You, presumably, would not attend an IBM briefing that declared that the > > moon was made of (big) blue cheese and quite happily accept this > > unquestioningly? When I attend IBM briefings - or anyone else's really - I > > tend to treat everything I'm told with a (hopefully) healthy dose of > > scepticism, and test everything I'm told against other evidence available. > > > > In this case, I agree that the IBM message is "everything's tickety-boo with > > Informix under IBM". The evidence of the real world, however, is that an > > increasing number of customers are abandonning Informix under pressure from > > their ISVs. Furthermore, in my experience (please name one, someone, if > > anyone knows of one) I know not of a single such defector who is moving to > > DB2. Oracle and SQL Server are the beneficiaries. So it doesn't really > > matter what IBM *says*, the market perceives differently. And *that* is > > what counts. >