Re: NewEra Pricing

In article <Richard_Maurice.3q9l@equinox.gen.nz>, Richard_Maurice@equinox.gen.nz (Richard Maurice) writes: >Did anyone else notice the NewEra pricing near the end of one of the >postings of the Informix NewEra press releases?...... I agree that the New Era pricing is too high with the runtime costs being most egreous. If the product is as good as Informix says it is they could make good money on the product, overtake the current market leaders, and, in the bargain, sell a few more back end engines. But they won't with the current pricing structure. My department is currently evaluating Windows based client-server application development tools having conceded that Windows is the desktop environment of choice. What we have seen so far is that ObjectView (which is not object oriented in the least) and PowerBuilder are pretty tools for a single developer in a stand alone mode. There is lots of 'client' and not a bit of 'server' in these so-called client-server tools. As one of our folks said, it is not that you should pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, there *is* nothing behind the curtain with these tools. Take ObjectView (please!) for example. They so lack an understanding of what connecting to server means, the brief paragraph on connecting to Informix says to execute 'startsql' (instead of 'remsql'). Running against the database on the local PC is hardly client-server. Yet ObjectView continues to advertise themselves as a client-server tool with native Informix drivers. Neither Knowledgeware nor Powersoft could say what was really needed to connect their products to an Informix backend, what version of I-Net was required, what .DDLs, etc. Having used I-Net since 1988 and run DOS-based client-server applications since 1990 we were able to provide the additional software and configuration without their help. In addition, these products have to grow up a lot to be good tools for large application development projects. Informix understands those weaknesses and is saying some of the right things regarding the New Era product. Whether they can deliver is another thing. The configuration management links and application partitioning are future enhancements. The demos looked great (but then don't they all). And the ability to add EDI or Imaging capabilities via class libraries is very attractive (again, if it really is as easy as adding one line of code). We are seeking a copy to evaluate and I'll let you know what we find. The runtime pricing is too high but the bundle does include material that is extra cost with other packages. ObjectView, PowerBuilder, etc. don't do client-server without the network connectivity (I-Net) which you must buy separately; so free runtime isn't exactly free. And the end-user query tool, Viewpoint, is also included with the New Era runtime. Again, these are extra cost add-ons with the other packages. The marketing pitch made by Phil White is that NewEra's application partitioning will save money because you won't need to replace all those lower capacity PCs with 486 & Pentium machines. First, the application partitioning isn't promised until next year. Second, being able to distribute processing on MIS built client-server applications isn't going to satisfy my users (read 'customers') demand for more and more processing power for their desktop applications. It should be interesting to see 1) how good the product real is and 2) how quickly Informix does (or does not) adapt to the market. -Jim Frison /***** I'm writing from home so no disclaimers are needed *****/