Re: Major crackdown on Informix products/ports ?

We should probably all stop putting words in Bob F.'s or anyone elses mouth. And Mike, you might want to consede that it just might be that Informix have some customers who have said they want a Windows 95 version of their engines for some purpose. Among other reasons there may be, Informix do have some large customers wanting large volumes of database engines on very low end hardware. It just may happen that Windows 95 with an Informix engine may be a good alternative for them. If you want to judge these customers please say so, but I imagine it would be hard without knowing them and their applications. Of course you may conclude as you do that Informix does all this only for the high end customers. It may also be correct that it's possible to interprete their statements of late to be that this is all they care about. In this respect you may want to consider the difference of puting emphasis or focus in this area and actually having products on a wide basis for all to be able to use. You might also want to consider how much of a full marketing strategy can be explained on a TV program or in a press intervue or even in a press release. There are several well known limitations to what you can do. It does seem to me they could have said something about the smaller customers as well, but I will not hold that against them. Not for now at least. What is important to us right now is that Informix do come out with the right products at the right time. And yes even a Windows 95 engine is interesting to us as is Windows NT. Other OS's are of more consern though right now, but that's another story. If these products are beeing made available as part of a strategy where we are not in their focus as beeing among their most interesting customers it will not hurt us, at least not much, in the short run. In the longer run (6 to 12 months perhaps) I think Informix will have to broaden their focus again. With the products they have and their continued emphasis on product development I think they have kept their opportunities open well enough. Part of this does of course depend on the new port so many of us are waiting for. And yes, Microsoft do want to compete in every part of the market. That's not the interesting part however. The interesting part is what opportunities are the best ones for Informix right now. In their current position Informix have to focus on now and the short term future. I think they have been clear enough in saying that is what they are doing. Then we might want to differentiate a little between what they say they focus on right now, and what is going to be their long term strategy. For a long term strategy I would have much more to say. Just so it's clear however I do think Informix should compete head on with everybody in the database market within a relatively short timeframe (6 to 12 months again). With their technology they are uniquely positioned to do just that. The plain DS and UDO on everything from a lap top to a main frame calibered Unix or NT server is something noone else have. Key however is that noone else have that technology even for any single part of this range of hardware. With that in mind Informix can compete well in any market. Dear Mike, it may (that may-word again!) be that you are confusing your own attitude and wishes for Informix's long term strategy with what Informix can be expected to be capable of doing right now. At least I haven't seen a clear differentiation from you in this respect. On Thu, 05 Mar 1998 17:45:28 -0600, Michael Segel <Mikey@NOSPAM.KingofMyDomain.MAPSON.Segel.com> wrote: > > >> When you're looking to install a system that replicates data from >> a widely distributed set of stores through local warehouses and >> on up to coorporate HQ, then you must have a Windows product >> as part of the overall mix. >> > >No you don't.Tell that to IBM and they will laugh at you. >Its that type of mentality that will do you in. >Will you find windows and have to export some data to a windows app? >Most likely. Billy boy does have his monopoly now doesn't he? But it doesn't >mean that you *MUST* have Windows products in the mix. > >> For this kind of situation, you're not competing with Bill. Bill >> don't run warehouses and he don't run on Unix servers (both of >> which are also necessary parts of the overall solution). You're >> competing with other DBMS vendors to solve this 'hard problem' >> (aspects of which run on small/commodity hardware). >> > >Want to bet? Billy boy wants SQLserver and NT on everything, including >the Big Iron. > >I believe the Hard CORE Microsloth zombies say NT on an Alpha cluser running >SQueelServer comes to mind. And that my boys is real. > >The bottom line is that Bob's statements are not correct and his/Informix's >positions are >now being restated to read: We solve esoteric problems, enterprise wide >solutions for really >really big customers who are willing to pay us the big bucks, but we don't >care about >the little guy who's more of a pain in the kneck than he's worth. > >Did I get that right? ;-) (Toungue is definately in cheek. But I think you get >my point!) > > Nils Myklebust NM Data AS Norway E-mail: Nils.Myklebust@nmdata.com FAQ at: Primary with ODBC info: http://www.smooth1.demon.co.uk Official site http://www.iiug.org/techinfo/faq/faq_top.html