Re: Seeding the market (was Informix Directions)

Cosmo Lee wrote: > > Tim Schaefer wrote: > > > Take care of the engine, and developers FIRST, > > and the rest will take care of itself. I will be more than > > happy to head up your marketing efforts, give me a call. > > > > > > Hear, hear: And to seed the market w/ developers of Informix - who will then > evangelize to the rest of the company, including management: EDUCATE > DEVELOPERS FOR FREE. > > This may seem like a radical idea, but it's painfully obvious to me that this > is a sure way to get developers recommending Informix. It amazes me that > companies don't already do this. People recommend what they know. Give No its not a radically new concept. Its known as grass roots marketing. Read Guy Kawasaki's (?sp?) book on his job at apple. The problem that Informix faces is that they lack a marketing director. This means that there is *NO* Market Planning nor Market Research. I didn't want to trounce Paul B. publically since his is also a supporter of Linux. Informix has become reactionary to the needs of their largest customers. Is this a bad thing? The short answer is Yes. If listening to the large clients and meeting their needs was part of an overall strategy, then it would be ok, however there is no larger strategy at Informix. Paul says that they want to focus on their higher end clients. Ok, so that means you will only sell 1,000 or so units of Universal Server a year and you don't need a world wide organization. You become a boutique firm with maybe a handful of clients. 1/3 of your engineers and a few marketing and sales types. (Isn't this what happened to Cray? Or was that Unisys? Encore? Damn, so many downsized companies, its hard to remember? ;-) Or Informix changes their strategy, rebuilds their grass roots efforts, listens to their conusmers, and does some market research. Informix has to wise up. IBM DB2's *universal server* has all the same buzz words. So where is their technical advantage. (Technical advantage changes every couple of months.)[Remember how Informix,Oracle and Sybase used to leap frog each other with new and improved products, with faster and faster benchmarks?] Informix has to start asking themselves the basic questions. "Why Informix?" is a good place to start. Informix also has to realize that its the consultant or evangelist on site that makes the sale. Not the salesman. All he does is close the deal. In lighr of recent articles, most major companies are databased out. For Informix to suceed, it has to look towards new markets. Of course, for Informix, there is a time factor. And time is running out. -Just a few sage words from your Uncle Mikey. -- #include <std_disclaimer.h> /* Mike Segel (MS385) */ #include <No_Spam.h> #ifdef OFFENDED_BY_CONTENT The author takes no responsibility for this post. Any resemblence to a coherent rational thought is purely coincidence. -The Management. #endif ***************************** Due to AGIS's Refusal to Act Responsibly We are blocking all of their domains at the packet level. This block will exist until AGIS modifies their policies to conform to existing RFCs and net community standards. We encourage all ISPs and domain holders to do the same. *****************************