Re: Future of Informix

rgracyk@ci.lompoc.ca.us wrote: :We recently had a meeting with our informix rep (Is it bad form to post the :names of the people?) Yes : to discuss our upgrade stategy. BTW, we are on 5.0 SE :on a clipper box for our intergraph MGE project. We are migrating to NT, so :we wanted to know what to do. The informix rep said lots of things, so I :asked him to clarify, his response was the following, it is long, and we are :not sure what it really means. We consider ourselves incidental users of :informix because it came with our intergraph solution and not developers. I :wanted to share and to ask for an interpretation. Thanks to all. Informix have a problem with users like you. They sell databases, development tools and connectivity. That means their primary customers are those who use these to develop applications. When they come to someone like you that simply use an application that happens to use their database what should they tell you? According to your post they told you a lot about their engines and particularly the new tools strategy for developing applications. This is somewhat besides the point, but is still of some interest for you. The point here is that they do have the best database technology arround. The fact that they have the Universal Server may not directly apply to you right now. However it does give you opportunities to upgrade to it the day you (or rather your application) can benefit from it. In the meantime they also have the best regular relational databases that you can use. The problem of giving any sensible information to you here is that you say nothing about what your application is or does. It's from Intergraph - is it CAD/CAM related? In that case a future upgrade to Universal Server should be a very interesting oportunity. Obviously you will have to wait until the application can utilize it's great functionallity. The new tools strategy from Informix doesn't directly apply to your situation. Indirectly it is however interesting as the third party (Intergraph) who makes your application now have gotten many more and very much better opportunities for developing greate applications and do it faster and simpler than was previously possible. In my opinion the new strategy, if executed properly, will propel Informix beyond the competition in the application development area. In the old days when character based interfaces ruled they where much better with their 4GL tool. They can come back to that situation again now. To know about this is of course interesting to you as it insures that great applications can be developed easier and faster than with the alternatives. Although Informix's new tools strategy talks a lot about the Universal Server most of it is also applicable to their other database engines. ...Informix information sniped... Nils.Myklebust@idg.no NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway My opinions are those of my company The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org