RE: When you think of databases and IBM what comes to mind?
Per Gumby, "To give you an example... There's an upcoming road show for Informix. Chicago was by-passed .... But what do I know..."... Gumby, I surely must have misunderstood what you meant by this. Chicago is NOT being bypassed for the Informix RoadShow... If anyone else would like to attend the Informix roadshow in Chicago scheduled for July 14-15 this summer as indicated in the email from the IIUG dated 6/4 and mentioned in the Chicago User group meeting yesterday.... Here is the IBM sign-up link... https://www-926.ibm.com/events/swgeer/swgeer06.nsf/signin?openform&semin ar=kwomboe7ryt4j&lang=en Also, I am not on the IIUG BoD anymore because of economic issues/job issues.... I happily served my full year and reluctantly stepped down. Norma Jean From: informix-list-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:informix-list-bounces@iiug.org] On Behalf Of Ian Michael Gumby Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 7:18 AM To: Serge; informix-list@iiug.org Subject: RE: When you think of databases and IBM what comes to mind? > From: srielau@ca.ibm.com > Subject: Re: When you think of databases and IBM what comes to mind? > Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:52:27 -0400 > To: informix-list@iiug.org > > What you got was a drumbeat. What you ask for is a cacophony. > DB2 9.7 is going live June 19. > > Cheers > Serge Serge, I could care less about DB2 9.7. Hopefully the launch goes out much better than the 8.0 launch. The point is that this was the question posed by Arvin the Marvin (ArvindK@us.ibm.com) and his answer was DB2. When pressed on their 'go to market strategy', Arvin the Marvin didn't give a good answer. (You can listen to the replay to hear what he said.) When he gave an example of a high ratio of number of instances managed per DBA, his example was Wal*Mart (not named) where there are 15,000 instances managed by 8 DBAs. I believe 5 of these DBAs are 4 ESEs and 1 TAM. (Going from memory since I wrote the contract extension in 2003.) So I find his comments a bit disenginous when he's promoting strictly DB2 when IBM also sells IDS that also fits the synopsis of the meeting invite and also has a better 'hands off' maintenance cost than any other database on the market. Some would say that IDS is closer to a 'lights out' management solution than any other database on the market with the same feature set. IDS also has a better HA/ER message which goes to improved uptime and redundancy and safety, especially in regualatory concerns. Then there's the extensibility that comes in handy when dealing with a myriad of different data streams so IDS has a better message when it comes to 'Infosphere'. The point is that IBM is not providing a clear clean message when it comes to database strategy. Am I accusing IBM of playing favorites? Yeah on the surface that appears to be the case. IBM's S&D organization is trained to sell DB2. Not IDS. There are a couple of individual contributors who are in the trenches selling IDS, however... not many. IBM has had ample time to correct the lack of parity in the salesforce however this hasn't happened. Marketing budget? I can't address that. At best, one could argue in IBM's defense that this appearance of lack of parity boils down to the incompetence of a couple of individuals in WW Sales and Marketing of IDS. Really, without spending a lot of money, IDS could actually be better marketed. To give you an example... There's an upcoming road show for Informix. Chicago was by-passed because Rob Beal and Carlton Doe were presenting to the local usergroup. That was yesterday. And as always, I ended up getting snagged where I had more important things to do. How many people showed up? I heard through the grapevine that there were 10 people, including NJ who's on the IIUG BoD. Considering that Sears and Lake County are the largest customers that are serviced by the local sales team... (Hyatt is serviced by CSC and the GSI team supports CSC, Peapod is not covered by the local account team since they are now a wholely owned subsidary of a Dutch grocery chain... The list goes on...) The message isn't getting out to customers who are in the region that run IDS. Moto's support is being done from Florida these days and again that's Channels/ISV and not the local sales team. Do you start to see the problem? Maybe it would be easier if you and Jerry K actually stepped out of your respective labs and spent time in the field doing customer calls. The point is Serge, all of this is solvable even under IBM's draconian budget constraints. But hey! Look on the bright side. They haven't relocated Markham Labs to India or Brazil yet. (And yes, that would mean if you were relocated you'd be on their pay scale, not your existing one....) But hey! What do I know? Its not like I've covered Central North, Eastern US, and all of North America while at Informix/IBM working with the sales teams... Oh wait. I did. ;-) -G -G ________________________________ Hotmail(r) has ever-growing storage! Don't worry about storage limits. Check it out. <http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tu torial_Storage_062009>