Re: Informix and Lawson Software

"Neil Truby" <neil.truby@ardenta.com> wrote > There's a theory that goes that people using Informix made a decision to > choose it, rather than the market leader, because of its superior > technology, performance, ease-of-use or some other property. Those people > are now being shafted big time, without the benefit of vaseline. They are > going to be suspicious of making the same mistake twice, and choosing > another marginal player in the space - and make no mistake, DB2 UDB is a > marginal player in this space. > > Far safer to go for the market leader. > > I truly believe that this is the flaw in the great IBM plan. Why *should* > people move from IDS to DB2 just because IBM wishes it? The migration path > is no easier than for Oracle or SQL Server. It's not a market leader or > obviously technologically superior. Deals are avaiable from all the > competitors. > > Any company worth its salt will consider all the options when deciding which > database to choose. And I see no compelling reasons to choose DB2 .... Fully agreed. I will past here an old email between me an IBM employee. I am removing his name for obvious reason. rk- =========================================================== IBM Employee>DB2 arrowhead will NOT be after 9.6. It will be sometime after that. Conservative estimates put the product in 2008 - 2009 timeframe. there is a lot of work that needs to be done to DB2 to put in the features that Informix users are familiar and comfortable with. That said, it will be an iterative process -- HDR is going in first, fragmentation will come later, etc., etc. I'm not sure (because it's too far out) that there will ever be a big announcement "Hey DB2/A is finally here in it's 1.0 form!" I think it will just be a work in progress. myself>Where is the guarantee that DB2 Arrowhead will be compatible with existing Informix. How smooth will be the upgrade. IBM Emp>There is no compatibility promised or expected with a move from IDS to DB2/A. It will be a full migration just as there was a migration effort involved with moving from IDS to XPS. I am not in development so I can not say what will and will not be available in DB2/A but what is being told to customers is that the features will be there. We are NOT guaranteeing that they will work the same way as the Informix features did though. there is a subtle and very important difference there. myself> After all DB2 should be compatible with both DB2 and Informix database. It is not same as upgrading Oracle 7.x to Oracle 9.x, is it? So if a customer has to eventually migrate informix to some other database, it is same, be it Oracle or DB2. The attraction , if any, is to avoid any migration or have an automated migration. It is very difficult for me to convince management to stick with Informix. IBM has hinted them in abundance that they don't care for Informix. IBM emp> I don't know if "don't care" is the right choice of words but it is definitely NOT the preferred product, technology notwithstanding.