Re: Informix Information

> I know we've all seen the comments on marketing for Informix as opposed to > DB2 and the respective audiences for IBM products as opposed to SQL Server > and I don't want to open old wounds but I really do wonder whether the > traditional standards based relational databases such as Oracle, Informix, > and DB2 have had their day. The school kids have been learning Windows for > years now and graduates don't seem to understand that there was a computing > world pre-Windows. Unless the product has Microsoft written all over it > they assume that it isn't any good. It isn't nearly as bad as all that. Most of the college students I meet are very aware of M$'s deficiencies, and many are personally using alternative platforms such as LINUX and OS/X. > They are not interested in learning > about open systems and even have the gall to claim that informix does it > wrong because they have to use LIKE with % and _. Every college/university within 50-100 miles of here has Open Source in the curriculum if you are in anything IT related. I haven't met any resistance to it in years, in fact, the response is typically quite the opposite. > I have had exactly that > argument today with a few of our support staff. Because SQL Server does it > one way then that is the SQL way. And it's difficult to explain to them > that Microsoft can't even agree on their own definitions of SQL. > It is clear that SQL Server cannot perform as well as IDS but they keep > telling me about the SCO UNIX users who migrated to XP with SQL Server and > the new system runs faster. IT's difficult to explain to them that the > increased speed is because they have faster processors, faster and bigger > disks, and more memory. They don't believe it and nobody is advertising > "better then Microsoft". If you let the wrong people make the decisions, you get wrong answers. > Maybe we all should - but they'd take one look at > us and say "you're over 25 you don't know what you are talking about". > That is our main challenge - not the DB2/INFORMIX war - or the IBM/Oracle > war. We should all be turning our attention to getting the message out in > the Universities, Colleges, and schools that there is an alternative to > Microsoft. It may require a little more effort to learn it, and to run it, > but it can knock spots off of Microsoft.