Re: Informix Directions

Paul Brown wrote in message <6bfji7$nj3$1@agate.berkeley.edu>... >Mark D. Stock (mdstock@informix.com) wrote: >: > Tim Schaeffer Pointed out: >: > >: > 3. Market to developers FIRST, then management. Advertise clear, >: > simple messages to developers, not managers. Forget about >: > management, they only look at the pictures anyway. >: >: True and not true. Managers may only look at the pictures, but if they >: like the picture they buy the product. Developers usually only get a >: vote if they use their feet. The only area that developers can impact >: on the sale of products is by not knowing them. Products will not sell >: if there are no developers in the market. Other than that, you HAVE to >: sell to management. > > Tim - how big a check can you sign? You're a smart guy. Your manager > signs your check. (And probably the checks of all your peers.) > > The sad, grinding reality is that developers do not sign checks. > INFORMIX has always been able to sell technology to developers. As > I pointed out, INFORMIX routinely wins the technical battle. > Technically smart people get it. > Yes, but let's back up a minute here, and recap the ballgame. Somewhere around 3 or 4 years ago the developer community was left behind with the introduction of the wonderfulness of New Era. We didn't get to play with it because it was overpriced, and unavailable for evaluation by the very people who would use it or recommend it. So, no momentum. Only a few special cases of VARs in captive markets have made any kind of go at New Era, which to this day has cost your company more credibility than you can imagine. Then the stupidity of abandoning 4GL. And on and on. NO developer programs, or incentives. NO answer or communication from Informix, as they went through the slick top-down management sales game. Other companies found out that developers at all levels, VARs included, provide the leverage management looks for in making a big purchase. News clips about VARs buying Oracle influence management inside a company trying to make up their mind. "Hmmmmmmmmm, look at who's buying Oracle. I wonder why they thought it was so good. Oh look, here's another one.". Microsoft does this all the time too. Then, all of a sudden, Informix is now bigtime, and of course the fudging of the numbers and all that jazz. More products come out that are a distraction from the engine, and no communications that reach out to developers. No developer programs from Informix. No new tools really good to manage the server. Just a bunch of unfinished stuff that partway meets the need. No 4GL enhancements. Meanwhile, other data base vendors are reaching out to developers in new and different ways, leveraging the developer community. Microsoft does this to this day. Oracle's web site is feature rich for developers. Sybase figured it out too, latching onto Powerbuilder momentum. Either that or go out of business. If you go onsite to any sizable company, NT lovers abound, which in turn makes management happy, who sign the checks for the new NT servers, and the new Microsoft Software, buggy as it is. The developer community endorses and fuels the momentum for management. Systems people who don't know UNIX endorse more NT sales, because of the great visibility of Microsoft products. And Oracle is loving the NT market, fueling it with their "products". MS and Oracle both do a certain amount of rewarding developers and talking about their technology openly. Much of it needs to be countered by Informix, but where are they? Nowhere to be found. Management will not sign off on anything unless the momentum is readily apparent in the marketplace that other shops would use the technology. Why? Because they might have to attract new talent to work on their systems. They might have to satisfy stockholder expectations that they are doing things right, and safe. Your technology is not bought in a vacuum of "well management is the one who signs the checks". It is not this simple. > Then IFMX gets creamed. Anywhere O is, they can simply under-sell. > Manager looks at product A and product B and says, "Both databases. > One 10% the price of the other. Easy." > Informix didn't pay homage to your development community, snubbing us with the arrogance we currently enjoy. Where are the decent tools to REALLY manage servers beyond friggin shell scripts? And onstat, really. Is this a finished tool? I think not. It has probably no less than 5000 options, most I never use. If there's one more feature put into it, it'll probably explode. No friggin documentation about the output from this tool, which for most of us in the real world remains a mystery. No third party authors or books besides Carlton's book, of late to help build momentum. No documentation on the engine beyond concepts. Instead, DDJ and UWC come out, which have done nothing to further the momentum of your company. Nobody I know could care less about these products, yet these are the press released products that we're supposed to get excited about. Your company Paul has got to change it's attitude about how you sell your software. It's not sold in a vacuum of a bunch of managers who think it's simply an I vs O decision. It's not a bunch of people walking around in overpriced clothing who will use the software. The people who will implement and USE the friggin software will kill your sale faster than any manager worrying about the price. In fact as you well know, Informix is probably more cost-effective in the long run. But without developer momentum, the sale is lost. The mgr wants the feel-good feel from Oracle, with all their support and feelings of wonderfulness, and talent out there to hire to make it work. The manager will end up spending more on Oracle because it feels better. She/He will get happy Oracle people in to support it, and spend even more money. So writing the check is not about saving 10%, it's about feeling good about the company. IBM knows this drill more than anyone, constantly wet nursing their customers. > Hence the "high end". IFMX can get the check signed where it can > be explained to management that there is only one reasonable technical > solution. And that's places with extreme performance, complexity or > scalabilty. > You need to increase mindshare of you engines. I recently worked with a Sun field engineer who thought Informix was something our company developed. He was serious! I asked him if he ever heard of Oracle. "Oh yeah, is Informix one of those things?". This is a serious problem your company needs to take ownership of. You have not paid your dues with the development community, rather Informix has pissed on developers and made it egregious to get evals and demo copies to play with, AND BUY INTO THE FRIGGIN SOFTWARE. If we don't buy into it we certainly are not going to stand up for it in the workplace. I'm happy to report that Oracle has won a major place in our company. I had the opportunity to stand up for Informix and did not say a word in your companies' defense. Why? Because you have snubbed me and all Informix develope