"The Problem with Informix" Article by Philip Howarth, Bloor Research
This is a discussion thread rather than a technical support question. It starts with a link to a Register/Bloor Research article arguing IBM has a branding and marketing problem: Informix is sometimes the better fit, but IBM can only be seen promoting DB2. Posters debate IBM's weak use of reference customers (legal caution, bureaucracy, discounting practices), the confusion of DB2 being both a brand and a product, cross-pollination of Informix and DB2 technology, and whether Informix is thriving in OEM niches or effectively dead outside its installed base. Opinions stay split and no conclusion or resolution is reached.
Auto-generated by DrWatson from the posts below — may be imperfect; read the full thread.
The Register has an article by Philip Howarth of Bloor Research which fairly clearly describes IBM's problem with Informix marketing: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/19/ibm_informix_db2/ 'IBM has a problem with Informix. It is one of those problems that is actually a good problem, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't cause headaches... So, there are circumstances when it makes sense for IBM to promote the use of Informix as opposed to DB2. But, and here is the nub, it cannot be seen to be promoting anything other than DB2, since the company has put all of its database eggs into the DB2 basket... In other words, there is some seriously bad branding and marketing going on here...' Sincerely, Christopher Coleman Acting President Kansas City Informix Users Group www.iiug.org/kciug Database Analyst Pharmacy Division Mediware Information Systems, Inc.
I have heard that IBM has difficulty selling outside its installed base, that is, it does not build new customer sales as rapidly as one would expect it to in either hardware or software. They 'alledgedly' do well with existing customers, but getting new ones is not IBMs' strength. Don't know if this is true or not, but it would be intersting to know what big/notable sales are hitting IBM for DB2 vs Informix or visa versa. Even as bad as Informix marketing was pre-IBM, we used to hear dribbles of new customer wins. Now we hear nothing, either for DB2 or Informix. Can't remember the last time I heard anything about new customers going to DB2 or Informix. -DG- Christopher wrote: > The Register has an article by Philip Howarth of Bloor Research which > fairly clearly describes IBM's problem with Informix marketing: > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/19/ibm_informix_db2/ > 'IBM has a problem with Informix. It is one of those problems that is > actually a good problem, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't cause > headaches... > > So, there are circumstances when it makes sense for IBM to promote the > use of Informix as opposed to DB2. But, and here is the nub, it cannot > be seen to be promoting anything other than DB2, since the company has > put all of its database eggs into the DB2 basket... > > In other words, there is some seriously bad branding and marketing > going on here...' > > Sincerely, > > Christopher Coleman > > Acting President > Kansas City Informix Users Group > www.iiug.org/kciug > > Database Analyst > Pharmacy Division > Mediware Information Systems, Inc.
I can't comment on Informix, but I know first hand that DB2 is selling into what IBM calls the "whitespace" (companies that previously had no IBM at all in their shop). Many of the customers I deal with migrate from Oracle, Sybase or MS SQL Server to DB2 for LUW. Among others I had this year banks, money transfer and retail. All of which end customer migrations. Of course that doesn't mean migration is the majority of the sales. It's just a reflection of my day to day work. Also note that DB2 is growing in SMB which is (as the article correctly points out) not IBM home turf, but it requires a lot of DB2 Express licenses to feed the family. IMHO IBM isn't pushing reference customers strongly enough. Cheers Serge
"Serge Rielau" <srielau@ca.ibm.com> wrote in message news:2tkspiF203q7rU1@uni-berlin.de... > I can't comment on Informix, but I know first hand that DB2 is selling > into what IBM calls the "whitespace" (companies that previously had no > IBM at all in their shop). > Many of the customers I deal with migrate from Oracle, Sybase or MS SQL > Server to DB2 for LUW. > Among others I had this year banks, money transfer and retail. All of > which end customer migrations. > Of course that doesn't mean migration is the majority of the sales. It's > just a reflection of my day to day work. > Also note that DB2 is growing in SMB which is (as the article correctly > points out) not IBM home turf, but it requires a lot of DB2 Express > licenses to feed the family. Presumably growing from a lowish starting point? > IMHO IBM isn't pushing reference customers strongly enough. Probably you mean in DB2, but the same must be the case in Informix. The last time I looked at this section of the website there were just two such Informix stories: a university in America, and the El Salvador government. Some big, big companies here in the UK - and I don;t doubt elsewhere - are dependent upon Informix technology, and indeed some recent marketing around this has been aimed at the reseller community but, as noted, IBM can't bring itself to aim such messages at the wider public.
"Christopher" <christopher.coleman@mediware.com> wrote in message news:a727ee4f.0410190603.501e3d1e@posting.google.com... > The Register has an article by Philip Howarth of Bloor Research which > fairly clearly describes IBM's problem with Informix marketing: > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/19/ibm_informix_db2/ Another section: " Funnily enough, IBM is actually doing a lot with Informix, it has recently introduced the new CopperEye Datablade ..." I suppose, pedantically, this is true as IBM amongst others has "introduced" it, but as with many datablades Coppereye is in fact a product developed entirely separately from IBM, by the eponymous Copperye company in England.
Neil Truby wrote: > "Serge Rielau" <srielau@ca.ibm.com> wrote in message > news:2tkspiF203q7rU1@uni-berlin.de... > >>I can't comment on Informix, but I know first hand that DB2 is selling >>into what IBM calls the "whitespace" (companies that previously had no >>IBM at all in their shop). >>Many of the customers I deal with migrate from Oracle, Sybase or MS SQL >>Server to DB2 for LUW. >>Among others I had this year banks, money transfer and retail. All of >>which end customer migrations. >>Of course that doesn't mean migration is the majority of the sales. It's >>just a reflection of my day to day work. >>Also note that DB2 is growing in SMB which is (as the article correctly >>points out) not IBM home turf, but it requires a lot of DB2 Express >>licenses to feed the family. > > > Presumably growing from a lowish starting point? Yes. DB2 V8.2 is focussing on this new DB2 market. >>IMHO IBM isn't pushing reference customers strongly enough. > Probably you mean in DB2, but the same must be the case in Informix. The > last time I looked at this section of the website there were just two such > Informix stories: a university in America, and the El Salvador government. > Some big, big companies here in the UK - and I don;t doubt elsewhere - are > dependent upon Informix technology, and indeed some recent marketing around > this has been aimed at the reseller community but, as noted, IBM can't bring > itself to aim such messages at the wider public. It's a general problem. Supposedly there are a couple of things coming together here - let me see if I get that straight... First the US justice system seems to have caused some grief in the past with reference customers (not necessarily IBM's) being liable for giving "bad advise". Second, there are certain rules about what incentive a vendor can give to gain a reference. IBM at large, as always, tends to stay far away from anything that can be seen as illegal. Other vendors may be less concerned about giving deep discounts in return for a reference. When you're talking millions of $ funny things happen and it pays to be suspicious. Best investment may be to feed that DBA of the reference account some beer and see what the real story is... Cheers Serge
"Serge Rielau" <srielau@ca.ibm.com> wrote in message news:2tl1v1F1vk37qU1@uni-berlin.de... > Neil Truby wrote: > First the US justice system seems to have caused some grief in the past > with reference customers (not necessarily IBM's) being liable for giving > "bad advise". What did that "I" stand for again? :-) > Second, there are certain rules about what incentive a vendor can give > to gain a reference. > IBM at large, as always, tends to stay far away from anything that can > be seen as illegal. > Other vendors may be less concerned about giving deep discounts in > return for a reference. > When you're talking millions of $ funny things happen and it pays to be > suspicious. Best investment may be to feed that DBA of the reference > account some beer and see what the real story is... Actually, I wasn't thinking at all about incentives. Why should customers necessarily be paid to say nice things about Informix? I know that the IS Director at our biggest customer - a symbol group similar to 7-11 in the US - would be delighted and flattered to appear in pro-Informix articles. But it would have to be on her own terms - she'd insist on pointing out negatives, as well as positives, where they exist - and my experience of IBM publicity is that they'd want to control everything to the nth degree. I mentioned in an earlier post that we had a successful sale of Informix to a new online gaming company. We got this up and running from a standing start in just six weeks and from a number of perspectives - "sexy" business; quick implementation; in-built HA features of Informix - this is a pretty good story. The customer has agreed to our doing a PR story around the project. I't's going to cost us perhaps US$5,000 in PR costs. I don't doubt that IBM's PR teams wuld put up half of this if we asked, but the bureaucracy, the pre-conditions and the consequent delay would be such that it's just easier to do it ourselves ...
Serge Rielau wrote: > Best investment may be to feed that DBA of the reference > account some beer and see what the real story is... Something Serge and I agree on. By all means always, always, always talk to the DBA's. > Other vendors may be less concerned about giving deep discounts in return for a reference. Nobody discounts for references. All vendors discount, and IBM is extremely aggressive with it's discounting. And IBM's lack of references for DB2 has nothing to do with an unwillingness to discount. Serge - these are completely opprobrious comments and totally unlike you. Bad day ?
Mark Townsend wrote: > Serge Rielau wrote: > >> Best investment may be to feed that DBA of the reference >> account some beer and see what the real story is... > > > Something Serge and I agree on. By all means always, always, always talk > to the DBA's. > >> Other vendors may be less concerned about giving deep discounts in >> return for a reference. > Nobody discounts for references. All vendors discount, and IBM is > extremely aggressive with it's discounting. And IBM's lack of references > for DB2 has nothing to do with an unwillingness to discount. A little "e.g." in front of discount would have been in order. I stand by the gist of my post. Let's say IBM is working less hard to get references because they are more conservative as a company. > Serge - these are completely opprobrious comments and totally unlike > you. Bad day ? A new word :-) In deed I am sick@home. Does it show? Maybe I shouldn't have donated my flu-shot to that friendly grama south of the border ;-) Cheers Serge
Mark Townsend wrote: > opprobrious comments Strewth, digger deviant -- that's a big word! -- Strewth! Stick a sock in it, Sheila!
Christopher wrote: > The Register has an article by Philip Howarth of Bloor Research which > fairly clearly describes IBM's problem with Informix marketing: > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/19/ibm_informix_db2/ [SNIP] > So, there are circumstances when it makes sense for IBM to promote the > use of Informix as opposed to DB2. But, and here is the nub, it cannot > be seen to be promoting anything other than DB2, since the company has > put all of its database eggs into the DB2 basket... > > In other words, there is some seriously bad branding and marketing > going on here...' > Yup. Thats the story, but its not new. The marketing of DB2 as the brand and the product started long before the Informix acquistion. But what do you do? Do you change the name of the product and keep DB2 as the brand? Do you change the name of the brand and keep DB2 as the product? Customers still call DB2 EEE when the new name is DB2 UDB ESE w DPF or something like that.... ;-) My point is that IBM, in their infinite wisdom created a brand and a product with the same name. Even if you change the name of either, it will be very expensive to rebrand and wouldn't be effective. Take a simple test... Do you say DB2 IDS or Informix IDS? (Old habits die hard... ;-) But the interesting thing is that Bloor also got the cross pollenation of the products line correct. Items from heritage Informix's R&D are in DB2 and vice a versa. So IBM is capitalizing on Informix in the OEM space and DB2 as their go to in the main space. Its actually a good thing. Only now IBM has to train their sale critters that in the DB Space, they have to first listen to their customer's needs and then consider which product to lead with. ;-)(IDS 9.x? DB2 V8? Cloudscape? RedBrick? ...) (There's also U2 and IMS but hey, lets not go there.) In truth, the bottom line is that the combined IBM/Informix Intellectual Property puts IBM as the leader in Database technology. For those readers here, what it means is that the death of Informix was greatly exaggerated. The sad thing is that it took this long for people to figure it out. ;-) But hey, what do I know? A free clue... Oh and for all those who say the Database wars are over... Naw... Just taking a nap. If it took this long for the world to figure out that Informix is still alive and kicking, how long do you think it will take before they realize what features are going to be a must have? ;-)
On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 07:38:37 -0500, nobody <nobody@devnull.org> wrote: > >For those readers here, what it means is that the death of Informix was >greatly exaggerated. The sad thing is that it took this long for people >to figure it out. ;-) > Or it took IBM that long to figure out exactly what they bought . . . but that's another thread. JWC
nobody wrote: > > For those readers here, what it means is that the death of Informix was > greatly exaggerated. The sad thing is that it took this long for people > to figure it out. ;-) > The death was not "greatly exaggerated", it was eminent, and it happened. Tell me where there is an Informix presence anywhere that matters. Informix is history. The only place it matters is where it already exists, big in the minds of current, existing accounts, outside of that it doesn't matter. When Informix is marketed, if ever, pigs will indeed fly. -DG-