Re: Informix Directions

I, too, have been involved with Informix for over 10 years, first as an employee, then as a partner. I agree that Informix marketing is weak. Here's my $.02. Sales are usually approved by upper level management with input from the trenches. Marketing has to recognize this and market to BOTH groups. You have to market to management because they are looking at all the costs of new products, not just the initial purchase price. If a company is an Oracle shop, it is an uphill battle for a developer to try to introduce any other database due to the cost of supporting another new technology. You have to market to the developers because developers can sour a deal. If management asks the opinion of the development staff, and they give a resounding kibosh, it is very possible that the deal can go south. I have never been involved in a deal where the development staff's vote carried no weight. Sometimes not as much as it should, but always some weight. So it is obviously important that the developer, or the person driving the use of a new technology be as well armed as possible. This is even more important now given the financial weakness of Informix. Maybe a program like Microsoft's Developer Network (an enterprise enrollment costs $2000 and gets you all MS products for a year for evaluation) or Lotus's partner program (similar to Microsoft's) would help getting the developers what they need. But, it is imperative to get Informix's name in front of upper level management in a positive light. There has to be articles in WSJ and Computerworld that talk about good things at Informix. Informix must have that mind share to return to competitiveness.