Re: informix market share

>From end user's (my company) point of view, the biggest issue of
informix I can see is the cost (normally people complain this about oracle). I just check it from IBM and Oracle. The list price of IDS is about 20% more than oracle EE. No one is more expensive than oracle, when it comes to database. I'm sure IBM will support its current customers, but it appears that they don't want any new deals.

>> When did you last choose your car by the battery?
>>Because when your phone needs a recharge twice a day you swear at the
>> phone company.

You need much more service on database than battery. We can bundle database service to the vendor. However, the problems are: first, it will cost us a fortune; second, when there is a performance issue, the vendor could let us to buy a bigger machine when all they to do is changing one line of code.

>What is happening is that Informix skilled people are rapidly shrinking, just like
>Sybase and other fading products.

In this case, database is more like a car rather than a battery. Certainly, we can hire a Informix expertise. It will cost a lot when the skilled people are shrinking. I forget to mention that the town I live is in the middle of desert, with more than 1500 km away from any major cities. You probably won't buy a car here without a local mechanic who can do its maintenance. Remote DBA isn't possible because of regulation. If my company tries to save such money, they will get a hard lesson.

Less popularity also means less real gurus, more chance to be the first person who hit the bugs.

Cheers,
Xiaoxin Received on Sat Nov 26 2005 - 23:57:36 CST