Re: Informix's Official NewEra Three Year Plan

Dave Kosenko wrote: > By this statement, I take it to mean you work for Informix. As a matter of fact I do. > No offense, but > this statement is patently absurd. Jeff Hudson and the other officers are, in > fact, intimately involved with the decision-making process that ultimately > drive the day-to-day decisions. It is at that very level that decisions such > as 'do we cut further NewEra development' get made. Product managers > don't tell the CEO that he can't cut a product - it's the other way around. And > it HAS happened before (remember products like SmartWare, and WingZ?). Yes, you are correct in that I don't tell Bob (or any other member of the executive staff) what to do. That *would* be absurd. You are also correct that it has happened before. My memory does really stink but, it is not that bad!!! ;-) I can tell you from personal experience that Bob is not one to take rash actions or without due consideration of the recommendations of the staff who are responsible for different areas of our products. > Do you have ANY idea how long some feature requests have sat in frdb > without any action being taken on them? And I refer to features that a lot > of customers were looking for. I do. In excess of 4 years for some. I put a fair number of them into the system myself. And, as history demonstrates, it is just as easy to ignore frdb as any other data collection system. I cannot account for what has happened historically... I have spent most of my time here at Informix lobbying for the changes that you (our customers) were asking for. The people who were here then, for the most part, are not here now. >And I have to point out that a product in > maintenance mode by definition is not targeted to receive new functionality. > The WHOLE POINT of maintenance mode is to reduce the amount of effort > spent on a product to as close to zero as possible. The ultimate goal is to > continue to generate revenue from the product without infusing significant > development funds. How many new (major) features have made it in to 4gl > since it went into maint. mode? (Jonathan, can you comment?) And that is > a product that is still generating a significant amount of revenue. Speaking of 4GL... I am currently working on plans to enhance 4GL becuase it is an important product to Informix. In my opinion it has not had the attention paid to it that it (or the installed base) deserves. I believe that 4GL will continue to generate revenue for Informix for some time to come. > Sadly, there is little precedent for this at Informix. Like I said before, I cannot account for the past. On a historical basis, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Many of us at Informix are very interested in seeing the company work in a manner consistent with this intention. > Again, historically Informix has not reacted to even overwhelming sentiment > from the user community, at least not in what one could consider a timely > fashion. What you really need to drive features is to have big partners, > e.g. SAP, request (or even demand) certain features. Historically, that HAS > gotten the desired results. Final comments on the topic. I am going to do what I can to bring about the changes that I have addressed here in my previous postings. I cannot promise more. I can understand a natural suspicion on your part. Don't trust what I say... that would be foolish. In the coming months, watch our actions and judge the results for yourself. > "That's just my opinion - I could be wrong." > - Dennis Miller And so may I. Ken