PRESS INFORMIX, HEWLETT-PACKARD ACHIEVE PRICE PER TRANSACTION RECORD WITH NEW TPC-C BENCHMARK

INFORMIX, HEWLETT-PACKARD ACHIEVE PRICE PER TRANSACTION RECORD WITH NEW TPC-C BENCHMARK Performance is 50 Percent Faster than Comparable IBM/Sybase Test MENLO PARK, Calif. (August 8, 1994) -- Informix Software Inc. (NASDAQ:IFMX), the leader in parallel processing database technology, and Hewlett-Packard Company today announced record TPC-C cost per transaction results for INFORMIX(R)-OnLine 5.0 and the new HP 9000 Model E55. The Model E55 achieved 728.73 transactions per minute (tpmC) with a record-breaking cost performance of $765 per tpmC running INFORMIX-OnLine 5.0. The new TPC-C benchmark result is the first to be published on the HP 9000 Model E55. Based on performance, the Model E55 with INFORMIX-OnLine 5.0 is more than 50 percent faster than the comparably priced IBM PowerPC-based RS/6000 Model C10 running Sybase SQL Server 10 (485 tpmC, $906/tpmC) and has a price/performance advantage of 15 percent. "Performance of an IT system can make or break our customers in their respective market places," said Steve Sommer, vice president of marketing at Informix. "Informix's consistency in posting record-breaking price/performance levels in TPC-C benchmarks reflects the performance edge, and ultimately, competitive edge that our RDBMS engines offer users. With over 30 benchmarks completed using HP servers and Informix RDBMSs, users can count on the HP/Informix team to solve their business-critical, real-world applications." TPC-C Benchmark Predicts Real-World Database Performance The TPC-C benchmark, developed in 1992 by the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC), is considered to be the best benchmark test for evaluating real-world application performance. The benchmark measures a more complex, transaction-intensive, business environment by simulating an order-entry application in an OLTP environment. The benchmark includes full OLTP emulation from on-line users to storage devices; a mix of read-only and update intensive transaction; and tests five transaction types including on-line and batch. The benchmark results report the number of orders processed each minute within a specified response time. The HP 9000 Model E55 Business Server Based on HP's PA-7100/100 MHz processor, the HP 9000 Model E55 is an extension of HP's entry-level HP 9000 family of UNIX-based E-class business servers introduced earlier this year. HP's E-class servers proivide the power, flexibility and reliability not found typically in comparable competitive RISC and Intel-based servers. These servers can be deployed easily and cost-effectively in up to thousands of distributed sites to help companies manage business-critical operations locally. INFORMIX-OnLine 5.0 INFORMIX-OnLine 5.0 is a high-performance OLTP database server that provides high availability, data integrity and multimedia data management capabilities. Features of INFORMIX-OnLine 5.0 include stored procedures, which can reduce message traffic in a client/server environment; ANSI SQL-89-compliant declarative integrity constraints, which bring added security to a database by enforcing a set of safety checks on all applications accessing the data; and distributed updates with two-phase commit and recovery. About Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Company is an international manufacturer of measurement and computation products and systems recognized for excellence in quality and support. The company's products and services are used in industry, business, engineering, science, medicine and education in approximately 110 countries. HP has 97,000 employees and had revenue of $20.3 billion in its 1993 fiscal year. About Informix Informix Software is the leading supplier of high performance, parallel processing database technology for open systems. The company's database servers are the number one choice of computer hardware manufacturers for publishing Transaction Processing Council (TPC) benchmarks for UNIX-based systems. Informix products also include application development tools for creating client/server production applications, decision support systems and ad-hoc query interfaces, and connectivity software that allows information to be shared transparently from PCs to mainframes within the corporate computing environment. The company's corporate headquarters is in Menlo Park, California. ### INFORMIX is a registered trademark, and Dynamic Scalable Architecture and OnLine Dynamic Server are trademarks of Informix Software, Inc. All other companies mentioned or other names indicated by (R) or (TM) are registered trademarks their respective manufacturer. -- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% William Daul Advanced Support INFORMIX SOFTWARE INC. 4100 Bohannon Dr. (415) 926-6488 - wk Menlo Park, CA. 94025 uunet!infmx!billd or billd@informix.com