IIUG - Advocacy Program Announcement

IIUG Advocacy Program Announcement This message is to formally announce the expansion of the IIUG Advocacy Program that occurred at the Informix Worldwide Users Conference in San Francisco. Six new product or business issue sub-committees were formed with the input and direction of the Informix Users Group Leadership Council (IUGLC). For those of you unfamiliar with the IIUG Advocacy Program, it was formally kicked off late in 1996 as the fulfillment of one of the fundamental organizational goals of the IIUG. Early efforts of this program centered on server-side vs GUI administration tools. We were able to work with Informix to change their strategy in this important area. You can read the results of this work by pointing your browser to http://www.iiug.org/members/cdi_archive/1997.03/cdib.35344 Since that time, the IIUG membership has asked that the IIUG represent their views to Informix on a number of issues. In order to accomplish this, the IIUG formed several committees to focus on individual areas of interest as listed below. The IIUG would greatly appreciate your getting involved in any of these committees that might interest you. The work to be done is too large for just a small group of people such as the IIUG Board of Directors or the IUGLC. To become involved in any facet of the IIUG Advocacy Program, please contact the chair of the committee that interests you or myself. Some of the committees are functioning through Majordomo mailing lists run from the IIUG server. You can subscribe to these groups by sending e-mail to majordomo@iiug.org with the words "subscribe list_name your_email_address" (without the quotes of course) in the body of the message. Eventually we expect all the committees will be using Majordomo as the backbone for their communication efforts. At this time, the IIUG Advocacy Program sub-committees are 1. Engines Chair: N/A Mdomo list: none This group will address features and requirements for the entire Informix engine product family. 2. Linux Chair: Tim Schaefer tschaefe@mindspring.com mdomo list: linux-informix This group is working on building a business and technical case to support a limited port of Informix products to the Linux operating system. 3. General Informix Business Issues Chair: Fred Hubbard fredh@iiug.org mdomo list: none This sub-committee will monitor IIUG's overall perception of Informix. Areas of interest for this sub-committee include overall competitive positioning, response to important company headlines and significant product launches, the penetration and effect of marketing messages, and the overall effectiveness of Informix's communication with its community of users and partners. The General Informix Business Issues sub-committee of the IIUG Advocacy Program will publish its findings to the IIUG and, from time to time, discuss these findings with Informix management. 4. 4GL Product Enhancement Chair: Malcolm Weallans malcolm@iiug.org mdomo list: none With Informix's resurrection of the 4GL product family, this group will be working with Informix's product management to identify the most critical features that need to be added to the product and the future direction this product will take. The group will specifically focus on the prioritization of requested features as well as defining a standard against which third party compilers can be compared for compatibility with Informix's product. 5. NewEra and Client-Side Tools Chair: Gavin Nour nourg@iiug.org and Bernd Langer berndl@iiug.org mdomo list: none This group will address user concerns about the NewEra product, its future direction, and features. They will also provide input and direction on the strategy and execution of the DataDirector and other PCbased client products. 6. Administration and Performance Mgmt Tools and Utilities Chair: N/A mdomo list: none This group will work with Informix on their long-term strategy regarding server-side (character-based) administration tools and utilities as well as the functionality of the newly released Informix-Enterprise Command Center product. Again, I would encourage you to get involved in these committees. They are the ones that will be having an impact on the products upon which you have built your career. Make your voice heard to make these products better. Carlton Doe Chair, IIUG Advocacy Committee carlton@iiug.org