Re: Informix support: Where are you?

In article <1992May4.035303.6103@tybse1.uucp> swhite@tybse1.uucp (William C. "Spike" White) writes: >In article <2622@abcom.ATT.COM> mdb@abcom.ATT.COM (3030 ) writes: >>With all of the problems with INFORMIX being reported here, I was wondering >>how ORACLE and SYBASE treat their customers. >> >My group is exactly in the same situation (we have to give a recommendation >next month) and I'm following this discussion very closely. I'm interested in >the customer satisfaction with INFORMIX, ORACLE, SYBASE and INTERBASE and with >UNIFACE, JAM, ADS, FOCUS or ORACLE as a 4-GL front-end. Alright, let me do some obligatory Oracle bashing. I worked at Oracle in support for over a year, first in the International Division, then later in the newly formed Worldwide Support. Oracle does not notify customers when patches are available. A problem with database corruption in conjunction with large rollback segments in version 6.0.3x springs to mind, that really p*ssed customers off when they called in to find that it was a known problem and they could get a patch, but sorry, you have to recover from a backup first. The mythical v7 has been in development for about 4 years now. Quite a long development cycle there.... Recently the VP of support told support reps to let old calls "expire" and to concentrate on new calls. No wonder, since there are over 1,000 outstanding calls in the current queue. Not surprisingly, Oracle support is understaffed and underpaid. I think the last survey done there revealed that about 50% were actively seeking other jobs, and another 30% were thinking about leaving. Interestingly, Oracle support uses Aspect, a telephone routing system which uses Informix for data storage! As far as bugs, last I heard the Oracle bug database was at something like 70,000. I believe Informix's is about 1/10 of that. I could go on, but I'll stop here. Anyway, on a positive note, you can use Uniface, Jam, and Focus as front ends to Informix servers. Of course, INFORMIX-4GL is the best :-) Uniface, JYACC, and Info Builders are marketing partners of Informix and we work closely with them to make sure their products are compatible with our latest releases in a timely fashion. And yes, I'm obviously very biased since I'm an employee of Informix. --Neil