Re: Informix Buyout

On Wed, 30 Apr 1997 15:49:53 GMT, Nils.Myklebust@idg.no (Nils Myklebust) wrote: >"James McGovern" <mcgovej@commandsys.com> wrote: > >:I have heard from an insider that Microsoft is planning on purchasing >:Informix and will be making their final decision on friday. I will post >:information here, when I learn more... > >That would be a catastrophe for the database industry as well as the >general software industry. They'll do the same thing they did to a familiar old desktop database product a while back. >We all depend on powerful companies outside of Microsoft to give them >serious competition. Despite their current problems Informix is alive >and well and have a technology that could potentially be used to gain >a very significant marketshare in the database market if handled well. >This may of course be interesting enough for Microsoft, but they are >also moving themselves with the release of SQL Server ver. 7.0 > >It would be strange for Microsoft to take over a company that is so >strong in the Unix market. They wouldn't be able to, and probably not >want to, handle that part and would have to more or less write it off. >Not a small thing with a capitalized value of over US$ 1 billion and a >probable price far above that. Not the first toime a company bought out its competition just to elinate them. Look at Platinum gobbling up both Reltech and Brownstone. Maybe Oracle will do it do kill a competitor. But the anti-trust guys might try to stop that one. >I don't quite see anyone that could buy Informix. Non of the other >database companies would gain enough from it, IBM would only confuse >customers, Netscape probably isn't large enough to handle it. May be >CA. Although they would get problems with Ingres and probably have to >write that off they have done similar things before. Shure hope they >don't think about it. What about CA? They seem to have a taste for DBMS's? >From the shareholders point of view there is no need to sell Informix >(unless they get a very good price). They are so strong that they >could earn much more by retaining it as a separate company. Whether >the management shuffles and other things Informix are currently doing >are enough to get them back on track fast is something we will have to >wait and see. >If I where Sun, IBM, HP and a few others I would buy Informix stock to >avoide a Microsoft buyout if there where any danger. >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