Re: Informix-Online under Linux

Zachary Kessin wrote: > No but its growing fast, and a lot of products are apearing, Corel > office, Word Perfect. And I have been told that there are some people > inside Informix who have a linux port. Rumor has it that they are > thinking about selling it, its just a question of if there is a > market. However some other DB vendors think there is (Empress, > Adabas-D, Solid etc). > > --Zach Kessin Don't hold your breathe. Informix has bigger problems to solve before it can even think about Linux. Then there is a resource constraint. Then there are questions about how to market it, price it, support it. Of course there are also security issues too. Like its easier to reverse engineer Informix internals on Linux than on other OSs. (Whoops! Shouldn't have said that one.) Informix has also got a problem in that its a "global" company. Different products are controlled from different countries. For example, 4GL is out of India. After the latest fiasco, the restating of earnings, the delay in the shareholders meeting, and a general lack of a market plan, Linux doesn't fit in to their picture. Well, not completely true. Informix doesn't have an annouced or public plan so its impossible to say whether or not Linux is a part of it. Keep in mind, that the biggest question is "how can we sell anything on a free OS?" and how can we go to a CIO and talk about Linux? Those are the issues from Informix sales. They still think in top down sales rather than bottom up. As to the rumors, I don't want to address idle speculation. Informix has yet again worked themselves in to another hole. We have seen the evidence in the FUD tactics that Oracle and Microsoft have used. (Something about Costa Rica?) Please also note that the companies you mentioned, WordPerfect, Correl, etc ... are approaching the Linux marketplace out of desparation. It would not behoove Informix to have the appearances of doing the same. I'd say that Oracle would have a port ready first. Based on market research, it would be better accepted. (Like I said earlier, its not like I didn't do the homework or anything.) Oracle, *product performance aside*, has better brand recognition, market penetration, and a *HIGHER* customer satisfaction response. From a Linux perspective, if a port were to be annouced today, Oracle would be a better partner. This is not that Oracle is a better product, but rather since Informix has stumbled, Oracle is the only RDBMS company which could lend legitimacy to Linux. (Now whos fault is that?) So, take what I say with a grain of salt. Bob Finocchio could have a flash of brilliant insight and create a Linux port. But then again, his focus is elsewhere. -Mikey