RE: Informix in the news! Part Deux... RANT TIME
Called that number. I'm not certain when I've had quite as much fun. I will work have to work on this. There are no plans to make IDS Express FOC. The restrictions on IDS Express are: no more than 2 CPUs, 4 GB RAM; no HDR, no ER. Christine Normile Informix Dynamic Server Product Manager IBM Software Group Information Management Phone/Fax 877.252.5399 Mobile 210.365.5073 Email Christine.Normile@us.ibm.com "Maelwys Filidh" <lleu@hotmail.com > To Sent by: jgp@iiug.org, owner-informix-li informix-list@iiug.org st@iiug.org cc Subject 12/14/2005 06:38 RE: Informix in the news! Part AM Deux... RANT TIME Hi, Well, to increase, or even maintain good old IDS market share may I make a radical suggestion? Here it is: Put people calling about Informix through to someone who knows the first thing about it. Even someone who has heard of it would be a major improvement. Having heard (via a contact in the US) that IDS Express is being made FOC to match Oracle 10g Express and SQL Server Express, I called the old UK Informix number (0208 818 1000). You might think that IBM would have redirected this number to someone who has at least heard of Informix - you would be wrong! After 15 minutes & 3 transfers, I finally got through to someone who had heard of Informix and IDS. However it took a further 10 minutes to give me the price of IDS Express, and he couldn't tell me the licencing restirictions, which I believe are 2 CPUs 25 users (can anyone confirm?). He knew of no forthcoming announcement (which does not surprise me, as I wouldn't make that generally known at quarter end) but for heavens sake is it too much to ask to have a call obvously about Informix put through to someone who has at least heard of it? 25 minutes to get a price read to me off the price list (forgetting the assurance, which I had to ask for) and with not even current product info, let alone an indication of what is happening? This is far from an isolated instance, and my company is now seriously looking at alternative RDBMS for our app. Not a technical decision, not worries about the future of the technology, just pure gut wrencing fury that IBM cannot even give us price and product information needed to make informed choices. WTF happened to good old Partner Assist? My anger is furthered by the fact that I love IDS, and now I will have to learn about an inferior RDMBS, because of pure inefficiency on behalf of IBM. I'm now off to calm down. Pete A smile is a gift that is free to the giver and precious to the recipient. But giving someone the finger is free too, and I find it more personal and sincere. sending to informix-list [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of graycol.gif] [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of pic21126.gif] [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of ecblank.gif] sending to informix-list