Re: Seeding the market (was Informix Directions)

Paul Brown wrote: + Whatever problems IFMX may have, lack of market vision is not one + of them. The reality is that selling commodity SQL engines is + going to be hard. Fine. Don't fight that battle. Instead, go + where the strength is. Paul, usually I find myself in agreement with what you write here, but on this one I have to say WAKE UP! Informix has a tradition of abysmal marketing, and it is perhaps their biggest problem. Ok, maybe they have the vision, but they do a terrible job of communicating that vision. I know - I worked there for 10 years. When 99% of the articles, etc. you read in the various rags mention Oracle, Sybase, and SQL Server when they are talking about databases (i.e. completely failing to mention Informix), SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG WITH YOUR MARKETING DEPARTMENT! I know how many sales we lost to Oracle (often because Oracle had the "bigger name"); I always wonder how many we didn't "lose" because we were never even in the game, as the customer never even knew Informix existed. Good marketing fixes that very fundamental problem. + Did you guys see the numbers post restatement. Guys, IFMX + LOST MONEY in commodity DBMSs. Wrong. Informix lost money because they IGNORED commodity DBMSs. I know - I was there. No offence to you and the other former Illustra folks, but the focus on ORDBMS is what caused the loss. It's a great technology, but the majority of customers don't need it - at least not yet. You make money by selling customers what they want and need TODAY, then leverage those sales to sell them what they will need for tomorrow. Informix's mistake was to do the reverse, and it failed miserably. Had the sales model been to sell ODS and THEN get in and pitch IUS, there would not have been money lost. They may have even done some record sales. And there would probably have been more IUS sales to boot. + Once again, the IFMX focus seems to be selling into situations + where the problem is challenging and requires a stronger technical + solution than the competition is providing. This is unrelated to + the size of the customer: it's framed in terms of the problem/solution. Unfortunately, there are still far fewer of these situations that the normal old boring DBMS needs situations. To walk away from these, even with competition present, is plain foolish. At least if you plan on making any money. Dave