Re: Informix Software is Finished...

"Dave Kosenko" <nospam_dkosenko@monmouth.com> wrote: :Don't forget about the 11 engineers who left Informix's Portland lab and :moved over to Oracle. While not all, some of them were key players :in the development of DSA. If Ellison is smart, he will have them immersed :in the next generation of the Oracle kernel. Yes, but when I read the interview with Gary Kelly in Carlton Doe's book what I got out of it was that Gary had allready finished implementing most of the things he knew should be in the engine. He is obviously smart, but still any further developments would have been new teritory for him. Informix have come a long way beyond what he did, particularly through the development of the Universal Server. Technically I still believe Informix is way out ahead. :MS is certainly putting resources into improving SQLServer. In fact, I :know of :at least one former Informix engineer who is involved in doing just that :(hi Jeff ;-)). :But irrespective of that, they are selling plenty of SQLServer, so why :throw more :money at yet another database server? Just doesn't make good business :sense. This I believe. If you look at the resources Microsoft is putting into database engines they may one day become a formidable competitor. I do however think they are going down a doubtfull trail with their OLE DB stuff (their apparent competitor to the Universel Server type of functionality) when it comes to high performance. It's however likely they will put resouces into their db engine development as well. Also you are so right that Microsoft hardly need to be best. Their other benefits are great enough for very many that even a somewhat crippled product may be successful. I would however avoid their products as long as I can. I neither like to use second rate products, nor do I like to support someone who has or is going for an oligopoly (something like a monopoly, but created in the free market, not by governement decree) without also going for the best products. Nils.Myklebust@idg.no NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway My opinions are those of my company The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org