Re: INFORMIX IN THE NEWS: One you might not get to hear

In article <3527ac02.1895097734@news>, David Kosenko <dkosenko@monmouth.com> wrote: >Mike Segel <mikey@segel.NOSPAM-.KING.OF.MYDOMAIN.-NOSPAM.com> offerred: >:While I think that the Informix shareholders suit may have merit, this >:suit by Illustra >:shareholders doesn't hold water. Illustra should have done their due >:dilligence. > >Also, if you consider that the change in Informix's fortunes, and thus the >stock drop, seem to correspond very closely to the change in the company's >direction >after the acquisition of Illustra, it is not unreasonable to >consider this "just rewards". > I believe that the Illustra folks convinced Informix senior >management that ORDBMS would change the world and make them all wealthy; >Informix bought it, hook, line, and sinker, and put all their sales and >marketing efforts into IUS, neglecting the bread&butter standard rdbms product >line (they also confused the hell out of the sales force, which first of all >didn't understand ordbms technology, and second of all had spent the previous >year being told to sell XPS, but I digress..). When the industry found IUS >interesting, but not enough to buy right now, it left Informix with a lot less >revenue than they had expected, and the bottom fell out. > >In short, the former Illustra folks reaped the harvest of the seeds they >themselves sold. Tough break. But their own fault. No. The story that Informix focused on IUS and neglected the bread and butter was similar to Oracles story that their current problems are based on the asian markets problems. That is, fiction for the purpose of hiding the real problem. As far as is known, the real problem was irregularities in revenue recognition and sales practices. The Illustra merger took place in early 1996. The recent Informix restatement of results (released in Nov 97) covered 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997. Unless the Illustra folks have invented time travel, there is no way that they could have influenced Informix results in 1994 and 1995. -dg -- David Gould dg@illustra.com 510.628.3783 or 510.305.9468 Informix Software 300 Lakeside Drive Oakland, CA 94612 - A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five.