PRESS: Informix in the News

List of Informix related articles. Format: PUBLICATION "Article Name" Summary of Article [Date, Location in Publication, Author] Informix in the News --------------------------------- (08/25/97) COMPUTER RESELLER NEWS "Finocchio's take on Informix woes" In this Q&A article, Informix CEO Bob Finocchio speaks of the impact that the 1996 revenue restatement will have on company policies and whether or not it impacts VARs. During the discovery process, Informix found that its channel revenue recognition policy was not adhered to in approximately 40 transactions. According to Finocchio, Informix will enforce its policy, not change it. He added that to ensure this scenario did not reoccur, he is restructuring the entire control process of the company with a focus on centralization. Finocchio also stated that the revenue recognition problem does not impact VARs. In summation, Finocchio said Informix is "committed to learning how to work better with the channel," and highlighted VAR opportunities related to Informix's NT products. (8/25/97, pg. 117, Steven Burke) PC WEEK "Informix is banking on expanded tool set" Informix is preparing for the release of Data Director for Java 2.0, which will make it easier for third-party developers and programmers to develop Java applications for INFORMIX-Universal Server and Informix's flagship database products. "We believe [Data Director for Java] will generate incremental tools revenue and also help sell our servers," said Russ Henry at Informix. Industry analysts agree that enabling developers to create applications using existing tools will lower the cost and speed development of Java applications, but doubt that the product will have much of an impact on Universal Server sales. The package is due in the first quarter of 1998. (8/25/97, cover, Stacy Lavilla) COMPUTING CANADA "Informix enters the NT space" Informix said it is breaking new ground in the mid-tier market with its recently announced NT strategy. While Oracle hotly contests this claim, Informix is painting a picture of scalability across multiple operating systems (NT and Unix). According to Dave Outhwaite, Informix Canada, "In places such as the federal government ... it allows us to go in and give them a fully scalable solution, where previously they would have had to run their database on a Unix platform to get the scalability." (8/18/97, www.dowjones.com, Tyler Hamilton) COMPUTING CANADA "Informix has focus on its side" In this article, the outstanding question for Informix was "Can it get back in the game?". Analysts stated that the company's comeback will be hinged on the ability of Bob Finocchio to take the reigns and not necessarily on Universal Server and its projected market impact. Informix's Dave Outhwaite said that the key for the company will be to remain focused, which will give Informix an advantage over Oracle. For the record, Oracle stated that IBM and Microsoft are its competitors, not Informix. (8/18/97, www.dowjones.com, Tyler Hamilton) COMPUTERWORLD ONLINE "Mega-warehouse drives targeted marketing" HFS, Inc., a $10 billion holding company for national chains, said it is nearing completion on a $5.5 million integrated warehouse that contains data on more than 50 million customers across all of HFS's brands worldwide. The purpose of the warehouse is to use the consolidated information in new, highly targeted cross-brand promotions aimed at increasing market share for each HFS brand. The HFS warehouse uses INFORMIX-OnLine Dynamic Server 7.23 on DEC's SMP Alpha servers. The data being fed into it comes from a mix of Informix, mainframe, Microsoft, Oracle and Sybase sources. The decision to go with Informix was made last year based on partitioning capabilities and features such as 64-bit and large file support. By next year the warehouse is expected to triple in size to 1.2 terabytes. (8/18/97, www.computerworld.com, Jaikumar Vijayan) FORTUNE "How your data may soon seek you out" In this article about the evolution of push technology, Informix and competitor Oracle are mentioned as the two database leaders using TIBCO's TIB technology in their database products. Other vendors adopting the technology include Cisco and 3Com. This article focuses on the commercial applications of TIB, as it moves beyond the trading room floors to corporate information systems. (9/8/97, pg. 149, Edward Desmond) WEBMASTER "The 50/50" Informix 's OneSource is named one of WEBWEEK's Top 50 Intranet sites, all of which "save time, money and even a few lives." The field-sales support site allows employees to share presentations and proposals, and allows staff to easily contribute content. (8/97, pg. 43, staff writer) IT DAILY "Tech companies aid in community chest auction" iMerchants, Informix and Sun are providing the technology that will make Community Chest, a Hong Kong-based charity, one the first online auctioneers in the Asia Pacific region. The Internet auction software is provided by iMerchants, which was built on INFORMIX-Universal Server, and operates on Sun Microsystems' Ultra Web Server platform. (8/20/97, www.dowjones.com, staff writer) ADVANCED INTELLIGENT NETWORK NEWS "Service provider launches international one-number service" Voice-Tel, a subsidiary of Premiere Technologies, recently launched Voice-Tel Personal Assistant, a new integrated telephone messaging and personal information service. The Personal Assistant uses an Informix database running on DEC and voice synthesis products from Dialogic. "... [F]or the first time, we can integrate traditional voice mail box functions with enhanced services and let the user choose how to access them," said Neil Friedman at Voice-Tel. The service will be available to 600,000 subscribers by the end of 1997. (8/20/97, www.dowjones.com, staff writer) AMERICAN BANKER "Fleet puts muscle into building a huge warehouse" Fleet Financial Group is consolidating data from the seven-state banking company's 2,050 ATMs. The 14-month, $38 million project has involved up to 60 full-time employees. At least five system integrators and technology companies, including KPMG Peat Marwick, Informix and Sun Microsystems, are involved in the two-phase data warehouse projects, which is expected to be operational by January 1, 1998. This article reviewed the project's implementation phases and pilot programs that have helped shaped Fleet's plans. In addition to the warehouse, Fleet has plans for three data marts -- customer analysis for marketing, management information and customer profitability for telesales and branches. All together, Fleet's warehouse will hold one terabyte of data with enough memory to track all information in customer accounts for 36 months. (8/20/97, pg. 12, Drew Clark) BANK TECHNOLOGY NEWS "The care and feeding of very large databases" "A big trend is relationship banking, looking at the whole customer," said Richard Winter of Winter Corp. This trend is behind the explosion of