New Era Pros/Cons

We are considering upgrading an Informix ISQL-based Unix system, and would like to know a little more about the pros and cons of converting to New Era (heavy on the cons, but let's at least pretend to be balanced). The system is a military medical MIS, concentrating on logistics and patient movement, providing lots of statistical analysis and methods of communications (point-to-point, LAN, WAN). We are using a variety of platforms now (SVR3, Interactive x86, Solaris 2.4 base-server running the interactive programs, still supporting some ancient HP-UX 6 & 7 systems and starting to look at SVR4 and a full X environment). Future development will probably lean heavily in the Intel direction, but that's not certain (HP-UX 10 has been mentioned). Presuming that this group is a mix of people that love Informix and want to know all about it and people who are stuck with Informix and don't care much for the idea, we are hoping to get a balance of opinions before we commit the usual half a million to the folks in Menlo Park. Mike Mahnken beaumich@texas.net Research, Analysis, and Maintenance, Inc San Antonio, Texas, USA