Re: News Flash! Informix FREE! on NT!!!!

Michael Segel <Mikey@NOSPAM.King.of.mydomain.MAPSON.Segel.com> offerred: +Uhmm,Thats the *first* 50 run time licenses. +Its a one time deal. Pending on your completing an application. +At least this is what was explained to me. Yes, sorry if I wasn't clear on this. But what do you (or anyone, for that matter) think the average user load is on an NT-based system? Real question, that, I don't know myself. I would expect fewer than 100 users if that much. I think first 50 users free means a lot of developers targeting NT as a platform now have $0 cost for the database. Again, good for developers/VARs/SIs, bad for resellers. +Well, lets be real for a second.Informix doesn't really produce any *real* app +tools. +(Ducks and shouts, "OK, besides 4GL ;-)" ) +The idea being that one would use his/HER development +tool of choice. Symatec (Spammers), Microsloth (The evil ones), +Sun's native Java , Netscape, etc ... ,.... [Insert your favorite tool +here] and of course Apple/NeXT's Web Objects (My +personal favorite) You still need the Informix connectivity piece, be it CLI, ESQL, ODBC, whatever. As someone else has pointed out, it appears that this is available for free from Intraware (is that a free deployment version? Or is it a "demo" version?). +I would have to disagree.The concept would lower your development costs, by giving +you +a client/server development capability with a local copy of Informix. +That way when you develop, you have the engine and the app local. +You can then test everything and then migrate your engine to +Unix/Linux [Yes, I had to throw that one in there.] For better +performance. Maybe. It would be a boon to such developers. But that is NOT what Informix is targeting. They want to win market share on s/w developed FOR NT. +The *free* copy is *ONLY* for development and not distribution. +Thats an important thing to remember. If I write a POS system +for my sister's store, then I can develop it for free, but then I would +have to buy a run time license for her store. (Unless I want to +resell the software then I can use one of the 50 runtime licenses +for free.) Umm, that's exactly the point. You deploy the runtime license (which we all know is a legal concept - a db server is fully functional whether it be runtime or development, the only difference is what you can LEGALLY do with it) along with your app. NO PURCHASE OF INFORMIX PRODUCTS IS NECESSARY. You give customer your app and the database, and the database costs you and them zilch. Nada. Zip. As I mentioned before, you either sell them the package cheaper as a result, or sell it at the same price and pocket the difference. Only costs to deal with are for users 51 on up and maintenance (which at $5k is pretty darned cheap). +> But then, what do I know? +> +> Dave +> + +Hey That's my line! :-) I didn't see any copyright marks in your posts ;-) +By limiting the freebie to the core 20% of what Informix can do, +(IDS vs UDO or whatever they are calling it these days.), you +can expand your market share without really impacting sales. If you are right about this, then that is great. However, I (and others I have spoken to) fear that at least some customers will stampede over to NT while it is free and cut revenues on the small unix system side of things. Customers currently deploying on both are likely to push NT heavily to reap the savings. I'm sure we will see before too long... Dave -- Dave Kosenko davek@summitdata.com Director of Training Services (732) 469-4070 Summit Data Group (an Informix Authorized Education Center)