Yet another stellar example of IBM's IM marketing and sales in action...

Discover Informix Event - September 16, San Jose, California I'm sure most everyone on this list got this e-mail turd dropped in their in box. Now the reason I call this a turd is because it contains the following: "Find out what's new, and why the Informix fan base has voted IBM Informix the #1 vendor at VendorRate for two years in a row" Silly me. VendorRate no longer exits. (www.vendorrate.com is currently parked at GoDaddy) http://www.vendorrate.com/ Now for those Informix/IBM apologists who will say "Gumby you idiot, you got the site wrong..." All I can say is the following: "LOS GATOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--VendorRate (www.vendorrate.com), the only Web-based business information service that offers quick, confidential performance ratings and comparisons of technology vendors, announced today that IBM Informix, ChemSW, and 10ZiG Technology were the top rated vendors for overall customer satisfaction in 2009." Taken from :http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20091221005535/en/VendorRate-Announces-IBM-Informix-ChemSW-10ZiG-Top And of course this missive posted here already... http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/36114992/vendor-rate-dont-exists-any-more.aspx So, lets ask ourselves just how reliable and trustworthy a 'vote' by the 'Informix loyalists' who filled out a survey on a site that no longer exists? Hmmm. If I were a C level executive at a mid to large size company. I'd just shrug my shoulders and say "Informix who?" I guess no one bothered to proof the garbage being sent via the IIUG (er IBM's marketing shill of Informix since IBM can't market a single product that doesn't say DB2 ;-) A special note to Steve Mills... With Moffat out of the front running, are you next, or do you plan to retire when Sam does so that you can avoid the shite? And a special shout out to Jerry K. Too little, Too late. You have had ample time to pay attention, yet you were too busy looking elsewhere. So when are you going to release a blade that will allow Hadoop to pull data directly from Informix? Not that anyone but Wal*Mart would want it, and of course you can talk to Mike O. formerly of Illustra/Informix, now of Cloudera. He may know something about Wal*Mart's inquiry in to the world of Hadoop. ;-) But hey! What do I know? Maybe just enough to ask the *right* questions? ;-) -G

On 3 Sep., 14:53, Ian Michael Gumby <im_gu...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Discover Informix Event - September 16, San Jose, California > > I'm sure most everyone on this list got this e-mail turd dropped in their in box. > > Now the reason I call this a turd is because it contains the following: > "Find out what's new, and why the Informix fan base has voted IBM Informix the #1 vendor at VendorRate for two years in a row" > > Silly me. VendorRate no longer exits. > (www.vendorrate.comis currently parked at GoDaddy)http://www.vendorrate.com/ > > Now for those Informix/IBM apologists who will say "Gumby you idiot, you got the site wrong..." > All I can say is the following: > "LOS GATOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--VendorRate (www.vendorrate.com), >       the only Web-based business information service that offers quick, >       confidential performance ratings and comparisons of technology vendors, >       announced today that IBM Informix, ChemSW, and 10ZiG Technology were the >       top rated vendors for overall customer satisfaction in 2009." > Taken from :http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20091221005535/en/VendorRate-An... > > And of course this missive posted here already...http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/36114992/vendor-rate-dont-... > > So, lets ask ourselves just how reliable and trustworthy a 'vote' by the 'Informix loyalists' who filled out a survey on a site that no longer exists? > > Hmmm. If I were a C level executive at a mid to large size company. I'd just shrug my shoulders and say "Informix who?" > > I guess no one bothered to proof the garbage being sent via the IIUG (er IBM's marketing shill of Informix since IBM can't market a single product that doesn't say DB2 ;-) > > A special note to Steve Mills... With Moffat out of the front running, are you next, or do you plan to retire when Sam does so that you can avoid the shite? > > And a special shout out to Jerry K. Too little, Too late. You have had ample time to pay attention, yet you were too busy looking elsewhere. > > So when are you going to release a blade that will allow Hadoop to pull data directly from Informix? Not that anyone but Wal*Mart would want it, and of course you can talk to Mike O. formerly of Illustra/Informix, now of Cloudera. He may know something about Wal*Mart's inquiry in to the world of Hadoop. ;-) > > But hey! What do I know? Maybe just enough to ask the *right* questions? ;-) > > -G That is exactly the problem of IBM. They can only reference other sites and sources like VendorRate, IIUG or Informix Zone because there own marketing does NOTHING substantial for Informix. But as we see in the case of VendorRate, who knows how long those other sites/references will exist ? Ooh, I forgot we have this great new IBM website "Discover the new face of Informix". In fact it contains nothing substantial, it is just another certificate of IBM's unwillingness to spend real money to create product awareness for Informix. For years now IBM's marketing department isn't able to create a a clear product positioning for Informix that would allow it to co-exist beside DB2.. Look here and you see yet another example of IBM's "Cinderella treatment" of Informix: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/IM_Academic_Faculty/entry/db2_academic_associate_certification_exam_now_available_in_chinese_spanish_and_portuguese?lang=en_us Why don't we see the same offering for Informix ? There are many more of those examples where Informix is treated as Cinderella and it doesn't get better, it is even getting worse (:- I just read a report in the german "databasePro" from the IBM IOD conference Europe. The report starts with "IBM talks about the enhancements of it's database portfolio at IOD EMEA...." The whole report doesn't even mention Informix. It talks only about DB2 z/OS and DB2 LUW, the Oracle compatibility, the Sybase compatibility, the pureScale clustering, Infosphere Biginsights (Hadoop based). NOTHING about Informix, even not in a subordinate clause. This says it all. While IBM tells the loyal Informix community one story it tells the rest of the world a different story. We might call it "lip services", I'm starting to call it simply: LIES. That is exactly what it is. If I would be Rob Thomas, I woud get a translated copy of the report and see to whom at IBM the editor talked to. Then I would talk to this person and ask him why he doesn't tell the press that IBM has a multiple database strategy and why Informix is also an important part of this strategy. But Rob won't do that, because Informix is NOT part of the strategy, it is ONLY part of the strategy as long as IBM talks to the Informix community. I'm getting more and more frustrated and I'm tired of hearing IBM' lame excuses. Kill Informix or promote Informix, IBM - but stop telling lies to the loyal Informix community about how serious you are about Informix and your multiple database strategy. We don't believe you anymore until we see some REAL improvements ! BTW, I'm still waiting to see an official press release from IBM - distributed to many different communication channels - about the new generous Informix packaging offerings. How should people outside of the existing Informix community come to know the new Informix offerings if you only publish it in the existing Informix blogs ? I'm not sure if is just foolishness or calculated aim of IBM's marketing department. Anyway, if I would be Rob Thomas, I would take to my marketing department and ask them who is responsible for this amateurish behaviour. It is a shame (:-

"eherber" <eric@herber-consulting.de> wrote in message news:31506c15-d806-4c1a-8860-9dfa176a6360@y12g2000prb.googlegroups.com... On 3 Sep., 14:53, Ian Michael Gumby <im_gu...@hotmail.com> wrote: >> This says it all. While IBM tells the loyal Informix community one story >> it tells the rest of the world a different story. We might call it "lip >> services" ... Informix is NOT part of the strategy [or] it is ONLY part >> of the strategy as long as IBM talks to the Informix community ... Kill >> Informix or promote Informix, IBM. Well, let's think about this. Suppose for a minute that IBM's *actual* inclination is to kill Informix. Would it actually do so immediately? No, because Informix continues to generate tens, maybe low hundreds, of millions of dollars of revenue each year. Informix sites have proved themselves to be resistant to a remarkable degree to IBM's attempts to convert them to DB2 (has there ever been a conversion, aside from Finnish elevator company Kone?). But, Informix remains a "cash cow". So, sensible managers will continue to milk the cow until its yield drops below some level beneath which it's counter-productive to keep milking. The optimal way to prolong the yield is to try to minimise the rate of attrition. A strategy of targeting all promotion and advertising at the existing client base, plus introduction of new features, is the optimal way to minimise attrition. And, in fact, this is exactly what IBM is doing. Everything IBM does points towards it having adopted a "cash cow" strategy. And actually, it's executing it very well. You might think that the strategy itself is bollocks. You might observe that DB2 continues to be slaughtered in the LUW marketplace. You might believe that Informix could compete far better in LUW space than a product indelibly associated as a mainframe product. But, the bus has left the station. The decision was made long, long ago. Even I realise now that it will never be reversed.

> From: eric@herber-consulting.de > Subject: Re: Yet another stellar example of IBM's IM marketing and sales in action... > Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 10:30:53 -0700 > To: informix-list@iiug.org > > Informix. It > talks only about DB2 z/OS and DB2 LUW, the Oracle compatibility, the > Sybase > compatibility, the pureScale clustering, Infosphere Biginsights > (Hadoop based). > NOTHING about Informix, even not in a subordinate clause. > Funny you should mention IBM's Hadoop story. It sucks. No offense to those who are forced to sell it and work in it, but giving away a brain dead, dead on arrival, aborted creation of the damned, is less than worthless. 32bit Linux only? (No one runs a serious cluster on 32bit Linux. IBM's JVM? They all run on Sun's ... er Oracle's JVM (pre 18 release or post 20 release). And they turn to Cloudera (the *only* commercial support company) for support. Again, IBM sticking their little toe in the waters... I wouldn't trust them to deliver a solution to anyone. So one has to ask ... if you weren't running IDS, which database would *you* choose? -G