Re: Informix Directions

Ditto. I was an INFORMIX development partner. Spent my couple a thou a year after the initial purchase. Upgraded to 7.x and couldn't get a 4GL to compile with it. Called INFORMIX who said, "Oh we don;t handle small vendors call Tech Data, nope... you bought from INFORMIX call them. Every time we called our sales rep had "moved on" etc. etc. or a different office was handling that now... (i.e. Menlo,no....Lenexa, no wait... Texas) After a year of being shunted around I gave up and dropped my support. Guess what... NOBODY from INFORMIX noticed,cared or called. I'm associated with several other vendors/consultants in the same situation. Sure I have friends on the inside who may have been able to expedite things for me but I'm reluctant to put them on the spot. I was consulting at a major (Internationaly recognized) client with a a MAJOR purchase from INFORMIX and got to sit with a managing director who was given this same run around between Tampa, FT Lauderdale, Menlo and Atlanta. He actually had an engineer give him Kernal tuning parameters that disabled a HP K series (Of course this was during the HP/UX 10.0/Online 7.x debacle). What was I doing there as a consultant when they had an INFORMIX support contrac?. The most recent couple of INFORMIX DBA's who came in for a week or so tuned the engine and the clients' nightly processing failed. I wish I could get INFORMIX' billing rate! Don't misunderstand me. I have a lot of very good friends on the inside at the technical level but I agree whole heartledly with this thread. INFORMIX is a company that under the most previous administration lost it's way, forgot where it came from, forgot how to market and went out of it's way to make enemies of not only it's clients but all the little guys who were there from almost the start (mid-late 80's), the people who wrote the work arounds, acted as virtual beta testers etc. etc. Let's hope that the new administrators find the path once again. I have high hopes. Imagine the stock at $30.00+/share again.. Terry Hillick thillick@cscsi.com Peter Tashkoff wrote: > >>> "Tim Schaefer" <tschaefe@mindspring.com> 16/02/98 17:32:14 >>> > Yeah yeah yeah, I know, to you it's whining. =20 > >>>>>>>>>>> > > It isn't whining. > This year I will be spending 20k training in ABAP/4, SAP Basis Admin and = > .....Oracle. > I have also spent a grand getting certified in Informix Database/Admin, = > and 4gl. But do I seriously hope to get work in these areas?.... not = > really. > After 8 years of nothing but Informix I am being forced to spend big money = > to extend my skills elsewhere. I do not think that I am the only one. = > Tim is right. If Informix was a crappy product then this would be no = > problem, but can you imagine what it feels like to deliberately have to = > train in a product that just feels anachonistic, simply because that is = > where the work is? > You guys at Informix can go into denial as much as you like, but the = > performance of the company is forcing guys like me and Tim away, and quite = > frankly you cannot afford to lose people like us. > > In my in box today from Jobserve I have received notification of 29 = > Contract Oracle DBA positions available. There are no positions mentioned = > for Informix. This is unusual, usually there would be *at least* one or = > two informix 4gl or DBA positions. > The oracle positions average about a quarter to a third higher in rate = > that the Informix ones, (when you can find one). > > Call me stupid but I still have not given up on the company. Like Tim, I = > just wish Informix would get their shit together. How many years have we = > been asking for this? > > Peter Tashkop <tashkop@iname.com>