PRESS: INFORMIX FIRST TO DELIVER USER-BASED PRICING FOR NEW RDBMS RELEASE

INFORMIX FIRST TO DELIVER USER-BASED PRICING FOR NEW RDBMS RELEASE New Pricing Model Removes Machine-Class, Multitier Complexity; Value of RDBMS Tied Directly To Number of Users INFORMIX-OnLine Dynamic Server 6.0, Now Available, First Informix Product Affected by New Pricing Model MENLO PARK, Calif., (December 20, 1993) Informix Software, Inc.(NASDAQ:IFMX), announced today that it will be the first major database company to adopt the most comprehensive user-based pricing model, applicable to its new relational database management system (RDBMS) products. Informix developed the new model in response to customer demand for a pricing structure that is easier to understand and administer, and that more accurately reflects the value customers derive from using Informix's software. The new model also gives value-added partners greater flexibility to adapt Informix software to their database application solutions. "Our model is the only one that completely removes all the confusing options and tiers--much more simplistic than what other companies are offering today," said Phil White, Informix chairman and CEO. "At Informix, we will provide one option for our new 6.0 release that bundles all the core server and connectivity functionality, including client/server networking, parallel processing, and data replication, and customers will pay according to the number of users they want to support." New User-Based Pricing Model Under the new user-based pricing model, for the 6.0 release, a customer's price will be based on a fixed cost per user multiplied by the number of users. The price per user is the same regardless of the hardware platform size or number of central processor units (CPUs). The new user-based pricing model applies to both development and runtime versions of Informix software. Informix's original multitier pricing model, in which pricing is based on five tiers of machine classes and preset user increments within those tiers, will continue to be used for existing Informix databases (versions 5.X and earlier). New Products Affected By Pricing Model The first Informix products to be affected by the new pricing model is INFORMIX-OnLine Dynamic Server 6.0, and INFORMIX-SE 6.0, both available today on symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) platforms from Hewlett-Packard, Sequent Computer Systems, and Sun Microsystems. OnLine Dynamic Server is also the first product from Informix to implement the company's next-generation parallel processing database technology -- the Informix Dynamic Scalable Architecture (DSA). "DSA utilizes an internal parallel processing approach which allows database tasks to be broken into subtasks and processed in parallel," said Steve Sommer, vice president of marketing. "In contrast, our competition has resorted to a less efficient "bolt-on" approach to implement parallelization in their databases." The multithreaded database server is designed to exploit the capabilities of SMP and uniprocessor architectures and to address the growing needs of customers who must manage larger, more complex business-critical databases while improving overall system performance and scalability. OnLine Dynamic Server is designed to fully utilize hardware resources such as CPUs, disks, memory, and backup tape devices, whether on uniprocessor or multiprocessor systems. System resources can be reconfigured online to suit the changing demands of the system's workload. OnLine Dynamic Server's state-of-the-art, multithreaded architecture provides many benefits, including: - maximum scalability through the ability to dynamically allocate and configure database system resources; - optimized performance through multithreaded, parallelized database tasks; - reduced operating system overhead through bypassing the operating system's limits; - high availability through the ability to dynamically allocate shared memory, cache, and other resources; - task prioritization, scheduling, and locking at the database level (as opposed to the operating system level); and - dynamic load balancing across all available database server processes. INFORMIX-SE 6.0, Informix's mid-range SQL-based multi-user relational database management system, is ideally suited for small- to mid-range application environments and for environments with limited system administration resources. Informix is the only relational database company to provide customers with a choice of servers for database management, giving customers the ability to matchtheir server needs to the demands of their computing environment. Pricing Information INFORMIX-OnLine Dynamic Server 6.0 is priced at $1200 per user for development and $900 per user for runtime, with a minimum purchase of a 5-user license. INFORMIX-SE 6.0 is priced at $500 per user for development, with a minimum purchase of a 3-user license, and priced at $250 per user for runtime, with a minimum purchase of a 5-user license. Additional Products Additional products to be included under the new pricing model include: - RDBMS servers: INFORMIX-SE for Windows NT and C-ISAM 6.0. - RDBMS tools: INFORMIX-HyperScript Tools, INFORMIX-ViewPoint, INFORMIX-ESQL 6.0, INFORMIX-DBA, INFORMIX-4GL 6.0, INFORMIX-SQL 6.0, and INFORMIX-4GL for Windows. Service and support for Release 6.0 and new products will also move to a user-based cost structure worldwide. Actual product and service and support pricing will be determined on a country-by-country basis. About Informix Informix Software, Inc., provides the most complete and productive database technology to build, deploy, run and evolve applications. Informix products include powerful distributed database management systems, robust application development tools, and graphical- and character-based productivity software for delivering information to every significant desktop platform. With corporate headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Informix has European headquarters in London, and Asia/Pacific headquarters in Singapore. # # #