Re: INFORMIX IN THE NEWS: One you might not get to hear

dg@ubik.illustra.com (David Gould) offerred: :No. Yes, actually. Now let me say that, given your address, you are going to have a particular viewpoint that casts Illustra in the best light, and that is fair. I don't hold anything against the general former-Illustra folks, they are/were just regular working folks like the rest. Any blame leveled at former Illustra folks (and the original point of this discussion was that a bunch of former Illustra execs are suing Informix for mismanagement due to the stock drop; I maintain that these same folks, in steering Informix hard toward ORDBMS as their main thrust, were in large part responsible for said drop) by me is really directed toward the executives and upper management, not the folks in the trenches. That said,... :The story that Informix focused on IUS and neglected the bread and butter :was similar to Oracles story that their current problems are based on :the asian markets problems. That is, fiction for the purpose of hiding :the real problem. As far as is known, the real problem was irregularities :in revenue recognition and sales practices. No, that is not the "real" problem. It is true that part of the restatement was to take into account some revenue recognition activity that was not in line with Informix's stated policies. E.g., you do a 5 year deal for $5 million, conservative accounting says you recognize $1 million each year for 5 years. The irregularities, for the most part, came in all $5 mill being recognized in year one. In fact, this was standard practice once upon a time. If you look at the numbers (http://www.informix.com/informix/corpinfo/ifxnews/press/1997/fin1118.htm), even with the restatement, Informix was in the black until 1996. At that point, coincident with the shifted marketing and sales efforts, the numbers hit the red. I am not talking out of my ass here, I was there and saw it come down. The focus went like a whiplash from DSA/XPS to ORDBMS. The sales force was clueless how to sell this stuff, and most of the customers, while they though it was cool, didn't want it and couldn't use it. Illustra was successful, in a small way, with their s/w because they understood their niche and marketed to it. After the merger, it seemed like they could leverage the larger Informix sales force and market to sell ORDBMS to everyone. But that effort fell flat on its face. Informix ignored their source of success (mainstream dbms) and poor sales was outcome. No rocket science involved there. :The Illustra merger took place in early 1996. The recent Informix restatement :of results (released in Nov 97) covered 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997. : :Unless the Illustra folks have invented time travel, there is no way that :they could have influenced Informix results in 1994 and 1995. Correct. And 94 & 95, while revenue was less than reported, was still profitable (I wonder how much of the decrease was due to shifting stuff around to make 96 look a little less bad?). 96, the first year with Illustra, went right in the shitcan. And it did so because Informix was not selling enough software, plain and simple. That, in turn, was due to a confused and mixed message as to Informix's direction (which had been pretty damn clear for several years prior to that point) and a sales force that was not prepared to sell the new product. And that change of direction was clearly the result of the influence of the Illustra officers (there is plenty of blame to be leveled at Informix senior management as well, for allowing themselves to be dazzled and lead off track). So, I maintain that former Illustra management filing a class action suit against Informix is plain ridiculous. They took the risk at the time of the merger, thinking they could turn a modest, niche-market company into the next Oracle, and they were wrong. So their stock options are now worth considerably less. You pays your nickel and you takes your chances. Dave ********** "Everybody plays the fool, sometimes."