Re: Is IBM actually doing something with IDS?

Andrew Ford wrote: > So you would like a free full featured version of IDS with no time bomb to > install in your production environments? > > How does IBM get their cut? Would you purchase support or bring in some of > their consultants? > > Andrew > I'll try to explain why free IDS Express-C would be good for both IBM and the rest from my particular point of view. My colleges are writing several small apps for video rentals stores. They are installing them together with database. For such a small (micro) business a database have to be very cheap or free. Typically, Interbase is used for Delphi apps, SQL Server Express for .NET apps, mysql for php apps. Database in this scenario is chosen in following way: - first, free databases are taken into consideration; - then convenience of the developer decides. Although very convenient for us we will never choose IDS for small business because it just costs too much, even in case of Express version. In effect of similar decisions among developers IDS is not known at all in small companies, neither in universities. In case of universities important is the fact that students often make such small apps to earn some additional money. In big companies Informix is also not very popular because of aggressive marketing pressure from Microsoft and Oracle. End effect is such that number of people knowing IDS is very limited. If you give IDS Express-C for production purposes you will not lost any single $ in such very small companies because they wouldn't pay for database anyway. In bigger companies you will also not loose anything because for their scale of business only paid version will be scalable enough. So you will not loose any money on this and you have some chances that IDS may become more popular among developers if they can provide their apps with bundled free IDS version. This in turn increases chances that IDS can be taken into consideration for bigger deals. Now it isn't because almost nobody knows that Informix still exist, and if somebody heard about it then it doesn't know what it is good for. My conclusion is that we need free, fully functional IDS version. Let it be limited as for the database size, multi-processor features and other scalability features (let it be even more limited than paid IDS Express) but without time-bomb or "for educational purposes" clause. Then people need to be informed about availability of free IDS for production purposes. free IDS for small scale business + stronger marketing targeted at bigger business together should work. Robert Sosnowski

How do you calculate cost? It appears from reading this that you are basing your cost just on the cost of purchase. Maybe you should consider : a) The cost of maintaining the database b) The cost of database downtime c) The cost of support to name a few, in short the "Total Cost of Ownership" Remember, nothing is really "free", not even MS-Access in the long run :-) Sincerely Raj On 5/30/07, robsosno <robsosno@gmail.com> wrote: > > Andrew Ford wrote: > > So you would like a free full featured version of IDS with no time bomb > to > > install in your production environments? > > > > How does IBM get their cut? Would you purchase support or bring in some > of > > their consultants? > > > > Andrew > > > I'll try to explain why free IDS Express-C would be good for both IBM > and the rest from my particular point of view. > > My colleges are writing several small apps for video rentals stores. > They are installing them together with database. > For such a small (micro) business a database have to be very cheap or > free. Typically, Interbase is used for Delphi apps, SQL Server Express > for .NET apps, mysql for php apps. > Database in this scenario is chosen in following way: > - first, free databases are taken into consideration; > - then convenience of the developer decides. > > Although very convenient for us we will never choose IDS for small > business because it just costs too much, even in case of Express version. > > In effect of similar decisions among developers IDS is not known at all > in small companies, neither in universities. > In case of universities important is the fact that students often make > such small apps to earn some additional money. > > In big companies Informix is also not very popular because of aggressive > marketing pressure from Microsoft and Oracle. > End effect is such that number of people knowing IDS is very limited. > > If you give IDS Express-C for production purposes you will not lost any > single $ in such very small companies because they wouldn't pay for > database anyway. In bigger companies you will also not loose anything > because for their scale of business only paid version will be scalable > enough. > So you will not loose any money on this and you have some chances that > IDS may become more popular among developers if they can provide their > apps with bundled free IDS version. > > This in turn increases chances that IDS can be taken into consideration > for bigger deals. Now it isn't because almost nobody knows that Informix > still exist, and if somebody heard about it then it doesn't know what it > is good for. > > My conclusion is that we need free, fully functional IDS version. Let it > be limited as for the database size, multi-processor features and other > scalability features (let it be even more limited than paid IDS Express) > but without time-bomb or "for educational purposes" clause. Then people > need to be informed about availability of free IDS for production > purposes. > > free IDS for small scale business + stronger marketing targeted at > bigger business together should work. > > > Robert Sosnowski > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list >