Re: Satisfaction with Informix

Clem Akins <clem@informix.com> offerred: :I'm thrilled to pieces with Informix! I rate it a solid 4+, and enjoy it :so much that I just accepted a new position there. Gee Clem, that's great. But it looks like your enthusiasm has led you to some errors in recounting history: :This is Informix's bugbear. As the "technology leader" in databases, :the company goes to enormous lengths to make a product that is "better" :than the competition. The architectural changes that went into the :product to make the DSA were so profound that Informix's main competitor :risked lawsuit and physical abuse to hire away the brains behind the :effort. Now they are working diligently to catch up with this now-proven :technology. In fact, no such thing happened. While 11 folks from the Potland lab did indeed leave, they were not "hired away" from Informix, nor did Oracle risk any lawsuit in hiring them. From the skuttlebutt at the time, they left primarily due to dissatisfaction with the direction the product was taking (that was the point right after the Illustra merger, when the focus was abruptly shifted from IDS and XPS to Universal Server) as well as, I think, a profound lack of appreciation for the contribution these folks made to the company from the head of development. Oracle was one of several companies approached by the group (who had all worked together for the same employer previous to Informix). It was somewhat of a "if the game doesn't go the way we want it, we're taking our ball and going somewhere else" situation, though with some blame falling on Informix management as well. While Informix did file suit to try and block the hiring by Oracle, they ultimately dropped it as it really didn't have any merit (all were covered by nondisclosure agreements, so Oracle wasn't getting any trade secrets out of them anyway). Besides, it took them 3 years to recode OnLine when it was a simpler product than Oracle is currently. To expect this group to make any major impact in Oracle's architecture any time soon is silly. I suspect that larry hired them just to piss Phil off. Then he got to place that clever ad after Phil came knocking on his door demanding his employees back (what a BONEHEAD thing to do! what was Phil thinking?). :Informix wants its RDBMS products to be seen as the premier database, one :that customers will be happy to have when it comes time to "bet the :business" on the system. This is what Bob Finoccio, the new president :and CEO, means when he says that Informix is a "high end" company--at all :scales, from tiny systems to huge ones. I don't think Bob really knows *what* he means by the things he says. But he does look more like a CEO than Phil did ;-) :Technical Course Development Manager, Informix Software, Inc Aha, working for Andy, are you? Well work hard on that course development; as the manager and chief trainer for an IAEC, I'm the one who has to actually deliver that course material to customers. Some advice: LOSE the matching questions (students think they are stupid) and come up with case study exercises that demonstrate real world situations (or at least approximate them). Dave ********** "Everybody plays the fool, sometimes."