Re: informix market share
rkusenet
> Informix IDS 9 is recommended by IBM for Apps exploiting OO as well as apps requiring the DBMS
> runs OLTP embedded.
>
> Informix IDS has been and still is after what .. 5 years with IBM(?)... the backbone of >90% of
> 911 call centers in the US. Can't be that bad then and ain't going anywhere....
Add to it, IDS runs on 20 out of 25 top grocery chains in North America,
and about 80% of all retail shops like Wal-Mart, Sears etc.
I have not heard of one significant customer in the above industry switching
to Oracle after IBM bought Informix. On the contrary Wal-Mart.com switched
to Informix from Oracle. [ Wal-Mart.com is separate from Wal-Mart stores ].
Much I like Informix (though I stopped working with it for about a year
now), I also think it is toast for reasons totally different. What
is happening is that Informix skilled people are rapidly shrinking, just like
Sybase and other fading products. In my last project I worked with some
UK folks and was shocked to learn that they were exposed to only one
RDBMS: SQL Server, right thru their college days. Little bit of research
told me that this trend is bit global with most of the fresh graduates hardly
proficient in lesser known databases.
Bob Jones
"rkusenet" <rkus...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:Dg8if.35805$gK4.1...@news20.bellglobal.com...
> "Serge Rielau" <sri...@ca.ibm.com> wrote:-
>
>> Informix IDS 9 is recommended by IBM for Apps exploiting OO as well as
>> apps requiring the DBMS runs OLTP embedded.
>>
>> Informix IDS has been and still is after what .. 5 years with IBM(?)...
>> the backbone of >90% of 911 call centers in the US. Can't be that bad
>> then and ain't going anywhere....
>
> Add to it, IDS runs on 20 out of 25 top grocery chains in North America,
> and about 80% of all retail shops like Wal-Mart, Sears etc.
>
> I have not heard of one significant customer in the above industry
> switching
> to Oracle after IBM bought Informix. On the contrary Wal-Mart.com switched
> to Informix from Oracle. [ Wal-Mart.com is separate from Wal-Mart
> stores ].
>
Even so, Informix had only 1.4% market share in 2004, even less than Sybase.
> Much I like Informix (though I stopped working with it for about a year
> now), I also think it is toast for reasons totally different. What
> is happening is that Informix skilled people are rapidly shrinking, just
> like
> Sybase and other fading products. In my last project I worked with some
> UK folks and was shocked to learn that they were exposed to only one
> RDBMS: SQL Server, right thru their college days. Little bit of research
> told me that this trend is bit global with most of the fresh graduates
> hardly
> proficient in lesser known databases.
>
I am not surprised. Informix's future is about as bright as OS/2.
xiaoxin
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
DA Morgan
> Much I like Informix (though I stopped working with it for about a year
> now), I also think it is toast for reasons totally different. What
> is happening is that Informix skilled people are rapidly shrinking, just like
> Sybase and other fading products. In my last project I worked with some
> UK folks and was shocked to learn that they were exposed to only one
> RDBMS: SQL Server, right thru their college days. Little bit of research
> told me that this trend is bit global with most of the fresh graduates hardly
> proficient in lesser known databases.
That is precisely what I have been saying but few want to hear the
message. But what you also need to know is that what drives the
curriculum in classes such as mine is attendance. And students have
no interest in classes taught in anything other than SQL Server and
Oracle.
And it isn't just at the University of Washington, 1.5 miles away from
Bill Gates house. It is the same at the vast majority of colleges and
universities.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damo...@x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)
DA Morgan
> The list price of IDS is about 20% more than oracle EE. No one is
> more expensive than oracle, when it comes to database.
While that may have been true in the past. And is certainly a
common myth today. It is not reality today as you found out.
The truth, as I understand it, is that Oracle salespeople have been
told to NEVER lose a deal based on price. If a buyer pays more for
Oracle then the fault is entirely theirs.
But wouldn't a more accurate comparison of IDS to Oracle be with
Oracle's Standard Edition?
DA Morgan
> Add to it, IDS runs on 20 out of 25 top grocery chains in North America,
> and about 80% of all retail shops like Wal-Mart, Sears etc.
And how many of those 20 grocery chains and 80% of retail shops are
also running SQL Server and Oracle?
Seems to me this is rather creative use of statistics. No doubt
Microsoft can similarly claim that 100% of them use MS Access.
xiaoxin
>Oracle's Standard Edition?
I check the US price:
https://www-112.ibm.com/software/howtobuy/buyingtools/paexpress/Express?P0=E1&part_number=D6DAXLL,D5282LL,D6DB5LL,D6DBDLL,D53KKLL&catalogLocale=en_US&Locale=en_US&country=USA&PT=html&S_TACT=none&S_CMP=none
IBM Informix Dynamic Server Enterprise Edition Unlimited Processor
License + SW Maintenance 12 Months (D6DAXLL) 50,000
Oracle Database Enterprise Edition - Processor Perpetual 40,000 .
Plus 22% 12 Months support is 48,800.
IDS is 2.46% dearer. However, IDS wins by nearly 30% in the local list
price!
Cheers,
Xiaoxin
Noons
>
>
> I am not surprised. Informix's future is about as bright as OS/2.
Ouch!...
--
Cheers
Nuno Souto
in rainy Sydney, Australia
wizo...@yahoo.com.au.nospam
xiaoxin
Informix IDS is nearly 30% more expensive than Oracle Enterprise
Edition in the local list price.
Regards,
Xiaoxin
Neil Truby
news:x5bif.19109$BZ5....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
>
>> Much I like Informix (though I stopped working with it for about a year
>> now), I also think it is toast for reasons totally different. What
>> is happening is that Informix skilled people are rapidly shrinking, just
>> like
>> Sybase and other fading products. In my last project I worked with some
>> UK folks and was shocked to learn that they were exposed to only one
>> RDBMS: SQL Server, right thru their college days. Little bit of research
>> told me that this trend is bit global with most of the fresh graduates
>> hardly
>> proficient in lesser known databases.
I help companies equip for a market-leading app in Europe that remains
Informix-only. I fear for how long though: the last two customers have both
expressed concern not at Informix itself or even IBM's plans for it, but the
in shortage of skilled staff. Good for me selling managed service of
course, but not good for Informix long-term.
I previously mentioned that we recruited another graduate trainee this
summer, the first for a couple of years. We got a very good one but he,
like most people we interviewed this time, and in stark contrast to even 2
years ago, hadn't even covered SQL Server even in Computer Science: the unis
seem to think Access is sufficient grounding in database theory now!
Bob Jones
"xiaoxin" <lixia...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1133086783....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Not surprised at all. With such a small market share, IBM has to increase
its profit margin to make up for the development cost of Informix.
rkusenet
news:x5bif.19109$BZ5....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
> Even so, Informix had only 1.4% market share in 2004, even less than Sybase.
that's 1.4% of all market. Informix does not run on mainframes or AS/400.
For e.g. Db2 and Oracle have almost same market share, around 33%.
But the difference is that Db2 has almost all of it in mainframe and AS 400
platform and Oracle has it in LUW platform. I think Oracle's market share
in Unix/Linux is around 70%. In 1996 Informix held 21% of Unix market share.
I think that was its best ever market share.
Does anyone know how much does Informix now have in LUW. I will be surprised
if it is anything more than 5-7%.
rkusenet
"DA Morgan" <damo...@psoug.org> wrote in message news:1133072999.816373@yasure...
> rkusenet wrote:
>
>> Add to it, IDS runs on 20 out of 25 top grocery chains in North America,
>> and about 80% of all retail shops like Wal-Mart, Sears etc.
>
> And how many of those 20 grocery chains and 80% of retail shops are
> also running SQL Server and Oracle?
They must be using SS and O, most likely for their packaged applications.
Most of the best-of-the-breed packages support SS and O and the
customer is forced to buy them even if they are not a shop of these databases.
I know for sure that retail shops like Walmar, Kmart,Sears,Homedepot
run their stores applications on Informix. In grocery, Publix, PriceChopper,
Krogers run it on Informix. Safeway use to run and they migrated to SS
in 2003.
Bob Jones
Ok, let's just talk about LUW then. The market share for Informix was about
5% in 2004, down 1% from 2003. That just doesn't make me feel any better.
Keep in mind, IBM bought Informix to increase its database share on UNIX. So
far I am not seeing it happening. If Informix sales continue to dwindle,
customers will be forced to migrate soon.
rkusenet
> Ok, let's just talk about LUW then. The market share for Informix was about 5% in 2004, down 1%
> from 2003. That just doesn't make me feel any better. Keep in mind, IBM bought Informix to
> increase its database share on UNIX. So far I am not seeing it happening. If Informix sales
> continue to dwindle, customers will be forced to migrate soon.
of course true. When did I ever dispute this? All I said was that 1.4% is on
all platforms, not on LUW.
IBM did not buy Informix to increase. It bought Informix for following reasons:-
- to assuage concerns of big Informix customers like Wal-Mart. It is strongly
rumored that IBM bought Informix upon advise from Wal-Mart. One thing is
sure. With IBM as its new owner, Informix can never go bankrupt, leaving
its customer high and dry.
- to bring much needed high end technology to DB2 UDB. Notice that Db2 is
rapidly incorporating Informix technology. Like HADR. Version 9.0 of Db2,
known as Viper is out on beta now. It has table partitioning. I am pretty sure
that Informix's proven and stable fragmentation technology is behind it.
Until late 2004, DB2/UDB was embarrassingly deficient in features. It is a matter
of another one yr before it will have almost all features expected in an enterprise
class database.
I was one of those who suspected IBM's intention back in 2001. Indeed some
IBM employees did admit that they never wanted Informix to succeed. But
what they saw in next few years after Apr 2001 was that Informix customers
are fanatical about their product and the reputation is excellent. That forced
them to change their tactics.
I was genuinely surprised to see the features in Informix's latest version 10.
IBM has added lot of new exciting features. If they were interested in killing it,
why bother keeping Informix up-to-date. This doesn't make sense.
Informix is still toast bcos of FUD. What I think is going to happen is that
in another 1/2 yrs DB2 will match Informix in features and performance
and at that time many of Informix customer will migrate to DB2. Add to it
that no one wants to learn Informix skills, the demise will be further accelerated.
Oracle has more to worry in about a year when IBM will start poaching
Oracle customers with a version of DB2 which can stand up to Oracle,
if not already. IBM has deep pockets and is into many things. Imagine
when they tell customers "get a hardware from us and you will get DB2
free. Why are u paying Oracle so much". I use to work for a giant
consulting company till few months back and they lost out a multi million
contract to IBM Global Services in NY. I believe my company was
winning the bid till about the last day, when an IBM rep wrote a cheque
of few million dollars to the customer as cash back if they buy hardware,
software and services from IBM. Don't take it literally, but what I mentioned
actually happened. It was too tempting for the client to not ink the deal with
IBMGS.
BTW given the predatory tactics of Larry Ellison, why didn't he buy Informix
in 2001. He would have easily killed it by now. Was that a big mistake by
him. Is that a reason why he does not want to repeat the mistake with
Peoplesoft and Siebel.
Bob Jones
> "Bob Jones" <em...@me.not> wrote in message
> news:RLmif.34038$6e1....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
>
>> Ok, let's just talk about LUW then. The market share for Informix was
>> about 5% in 2004, down 1% from 2003. That just doesn't make me feel any
>> better. Keep in mind, IBM bought Informix to increase its database share
>> on UNIX. So far I am not seeing it happening. If Informix sales continue
>> to dwindle, customers will be forced to migrate soon.
>
> of course true. When did I ever dispute this? All I said was that 1.4% is
> on
> all platforms, not on LUW.
>
I did not say you did. I was simply answering your question. IBM folks
always like to include mainframe when they talk about maket shares. I was
just trying to be consistent.
> IBM did not buy Informix to increase. It bought Informix for following
> reasons:-
>
> - to assuage concerns of big Informix customers like Wal-Mart. It is
> strongly
> rumored that IBM bought Informix upon advise from Wal-Mart. One thing is
> sure. With IBM as its new owner, Informix can never go bankrupt, leaving
> its customer high and dry.
>
> - to bring much needed high end technology to DB2 UDB. Notice that Db2 is
> rapidly incorporating Informix technology. Like HADR. Version 9.0 of Db2,
> known as Viper is out on beta now. It has table partitioning. I am pretty
> sure
> that Informix's proven and stable fragmentation technology is behind it.
>
If not to improve the market share of its databases, what do you think the
ultimate goal of these 2 actions are? In fact, I could care less about what
IBM's real motive was, the only thing matters is the bottom line outcome.
Hmmm, I did not know table partitioning is so new to DB2.
> I was genuinely surprised to see the features in Informix's latest version
> 10.
> IBM has added lot of new exciting features. If they were interested in
> killing it,
> why bother keeping Informix up-to-date. This doesn't make sense.
>
I don't think IBM wants to kill it quickly. Quite the contrary, they want to
give it life-support for as long as possible.
> Informix is still toast bcos of FUD. What I think is going to happen is
> that
> in another 1/2 yrs DB2 will match Informix in features and performance
> and at that time many of Informix customer will migrate to DB2. Add to it
> that no one wants to learn Informix skills, the demise will be further
> accelerated.
>
Yes, but they could migrate to other databases as well.
> Oracle has more to worry in about a year when IBM will start poaching
> Oracle customers with a version of DB2 which can stand up to Oracle,
> if not already. IBM has deep pockets and is into many things. Imagine
> when they tell customers "get a hardware from us and you will get DB2
> free. Why are u paying Oracle so much".
Why isn't IBM doing this now?
> BTW given the predatory tactics of Larry Ellison, why didn't he buy
> Informix
> in 2001. He would have easily killed it by now. Was that a big mistake by
> him. Is that a reason why he does not want to repeat the mistake with
> Peoplesoft and Siebel.
>
Why do you think Oracle would want to buy Informix and then kill it? It
would not have done any good.
DA Morgan
My question about whether to the proper comparison of IDS is to Oracle's
Enterprise Edition or Standard Edition relates to comparable feature
sets. What functionality does Oracle's EE contain that is in IDS but
that is not in Oracle's SS?
Thanks.
Captain Pedantic
> "Bob Jones" <em...@me.not> wrote in message
> news:RLmif.34038$6e1....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
>
> IBM employees did admit that they never wanted Informix to succeed. But
> what they saw in next few years after Apr 2001 was that Informix customers
> are fanatical about their product and the reputation is excellent. That
> forced
> them to change their tactics.
> I was genuinely surprised to see the features in Informix's latest version
> 10.
> IBM has added lot of new exciting features. If they were interested in
> killing it,
> why bother keeping Informix up-to-date. This doesn't make sense.
This point - if IBM wants to kill Informix why are they bothering to keep
Informix so up-to-date? - is an excellent point but begs the equally valid
and baffling question "Why are they bothering to put so much quality R&D
into Informix if they won't advertise it?".
> Informix is still toast bcos of FUD. What I think is going to happen is
> that
> in another 1/2 yrs DB2 will match Informix in features and performance
> and at that time many of Informix customer will migrate to DB2.
This is just bollocks. IBM execs have already learnt the hard and painful
truth that Informix customers will not migrate to DB2.
> Add to it that no one wants to learn Informix skills, the demise will be
> further accelerated.
That may however be true.
Madison Pruet
> xiaoxin wrote:
> > The list price of IDS is about 20% more than oracle EE. No one is
> > more expensive than oracle, when it comes to database.
>
> Oracle's Standard Edition?
Not really. IDS has both HDR and Enterprise Replication as a base part of
the product. Last time I checked, the Oracle equivalent of IDS/ER would be
streams replication, not Oracle standard replication. And the last time I
checked Standard Edition didn't include Streams Replication.
DA Morgan
> IBM did not buy Informix to increase. It bought Informix for following reasons:-
>
> - to assuage concerns of big Informix customers like Wal-Mart. It is strongly
> rumored that IBM bought Informix upon advise from Wal-Mart. One thing is
> sure. With IBM as its new owner, Informix can never go bankrupt, leaving
> its customer high and dry.
This seems the most unlikely reason I can imagine. Why would company A
care whether company B, a competitor, went bankrupt? Methinks a more
logical reason was that company A did something stupid, from a legal
standpoint, and company B saw an opportunity to pick up marketshare and
technology for a reasonable price while avoiding costly litigation.
> Oracle has more to worry in about a year when IBM will start poaching
> Oracle customers with a version of DB2 which can stand up to Oracle,
> if not already.
And which runs one, and only one product line: SAP.
> IBM has deep pockets and is into many things. Imagine when they tell
> customers "get a hardware from us and you will get DB2
> free.
Imagine when there is not a single dollar of revenue coming to IBM
attributable to the sales of DB2. Imagine the research money. Imagine
the marketing dollars. Imagine the sales bonuses. Imagine sales three
years later ... better have a good imagination. IBM isn't that stupid.
rkusenet
> If not to improve the market share of its databases, what do you think the ultimate goal of
> these 2 actions are? In fact, I could care less about what IBM's real motive was, the only thing
> matters is the bottom line outcome.
** The ultimate goal is to get Informix customer as DB2.
** The ultimate goal is to make Db2 the only competitor to Oracle.
> I don't think IBM wants to kill it quickly. Quite the contrary, they want to give it
> life-support for as long as possible.
The above statement contradicts your earlier statement that IBM wants
to kill it.
To be frank, I am yet to hear a convincing argument on why IBM released
ver 10 of Informix. I think in the last 5 yrs or so, this is the most significant
release. Lack of a convincing reason is forcing me to give benefit of
doubt to IBM for the first time since they bought Informix. May be IBM
is really interested in keeping informix alive, at least till they bring DB2
upto the standard of Informix.
> Yes, but they could migrate to other databases as well.
Well it could not be for two reasons:-
(a) IBM may give them excellent 'moving' allowance. After
all it is money moving from one pocket to other.
(b) IBM may make the transition easier. I have a hunch
(though nothing to prove) that majority of informix customer
use in-house package, or custom developed package. If they
are using ESQL-C, Informix 4GL then it is not easy to move
to other databases. IBM is slowing making DB2 and Informix
compatible from application language point of view. Already
they have released ESQL/C which is same for both DB2
and Informix (someone can correct me). It won't be long
before 4GL is ported to Db2.
> Why do you think Oracle would want to buy Informix and then kill it? It would not have done any
> good.
Yeah right. I guess LarryE loves Mysql so much that he bought InnoDB
recently. And what about Peoplesoft and Siebel.
By buying Informix, Oracle would have achieved the following:-
- Deny IBM the ability to fast track development of DB2
(there is no question that DB2 folks are benefiting from 2000 odd
engineers of Informix who are rapidly bringing Db2 upto speed)
- Almost ensure that all Informix customers will migrate to Oracle.
It must be frustrating to Oracle that nearly 5 yrs after IBM bought,
they are not able to switch the real customers of Informix to Oracle.
What I believe is that packaged software customers of Informix
(that is those using SAP,Peoplesoft) are migrating fast to oracle,
bcos it is easy. But they are not able to do so for shops that run
their mission critical applications on Informix. Walmart, Sears,
HomeDepot,Walgreens,Eckerd,Longs and many more. If Oracle
had bought Informix, they would have got even those customers
without much problem.
Madison Pruet
> > The list price of IDS is about 20% more than oracle EE. No one is
> > more expensive than oracle, when it comes to database.
>
> While that may have been true in the past. And is certainly a
> common myth today. It is not reality today as you found out.
>
> The truth, as I understand it, is that Oracle salespeople have been
> told to NEVER lose a deal based on price. If a buyer pays more for
> Oracle then the fault is entirely theirs.
>
> But wouldn't a more accurate comparison of IDS to Oracle be with
> Oracle's Standard Edition?
processors in a multi-processor system that you could run it on. Is that
not true?
DA Morgan
But there is a lot more to Oracle EE than just Steams. My question was
... 'did anyone do an actual feature comparison to see which was the
most appropriate?'. I see little that would convince me IDS is not a
closer match to Oracle's Standard Edition.
Does anyone have a feature-by-feature comparison that would indicate
otherwise?
Madison Pruet
If Oracle EE could 1) run on more than 4 CPUs, 2) included DataGuard (IDS
HDR), 3) included Streams Replication (IDS ER), ... - then it would be fair
to say that IDS should be compared to Oracle EE.
Madison Pruet
> > Does anyone have a feature-by-feature comparison that would indicate
> > otherwise?
>
> If Oracle EE could 1) run on more than 4 CPUs, 2) included DataGuard (IDS
> HDR), 3) included Streams Replication (IDS ER), ... - then it would be
fair
> to say that IDS should be compared to Oracle EE.
Opps - mixed up my EE with my SS... ;-)
DA Morgan
Here is Oracle's exact verbiage from their web site:
Oracle Database Standard Edition may only be used on machines which have
the ability to run a maximum of four processor cores or on a cluster of
machines supporting up to a maximum of four processor cores per cluster.
DA Morgan
I think you meant SE. EE runs on an unlimited number of processors and
includes Streams and DataGuard.
Madison Pruet
>
> I think you meant SE. EE runs on an unlimited number of processors and
> includes Streams and DataGuard.
Geesh - Oracle has almost as many anagrams as IBM. ;-)
IANAL_Vista
t...@comcast.com:
>
>>
>> I think you meant SE. EE runs on an unlimited number of processors and
>> includes Streams and DataGuard.
>
> Geesh - Oracle has almost as many anagrams as IBM. ;-)
ANAGRAMS? I think not.
ACRONYMS? perhaps
xiaoxin
rkusenet
"DA Morgan" <damo...@psoug.org> wrote in message news:1133128055.247663@yasure...
> rkusenet wrote:
>
>> IBM did not buy Informix to increase. It bought Informix for following reasons:-
>>
>> - to assuage concerns of big Informix customers like Wal-Mart. It is strongly
>> rumored that IBM bought Informix upon advise from Wal-Mart. One thing is
>> sure. With IBM as its new owner, Informix can never go bankrupt, leaving
>> its customer high and dry.
>
> This seems the most unlikely reason I can imagine. Why would company A
> care whether company B, a competitor, went bankrupt? Methinks a more
> logical reason was that company A did something stupid, from a legal
> standpoint, and company B saw an opportunity to pick up marketshare and
> technology for a reasonable price while avoiding costly litigation.
That's why I said rumor. Taken from wikipedia page on informix
" In 2001 IBM, prompted by a suggestion from Wal-Mart [1], purchased Informix. IBM has long-term
plans to merge Informix technology into DB2, though as of 2004 it continues to release enhanced
versions of the Informix product line. In early 2005, IBM released version 10 of Informix IDS. "
> Imagine when there is not a single dollar of revenue coming to IBM
> attributable to the sales of DB2. Imagine the research money. Imagine
> the marketing dollars. Imagine the sales bonuses. Imagine sales three
> years later ... better have a good imagination. IBM isn't that stupid.
Within days of IBM purchasing Informix, Oracle started dangling
carrots in front of Informix customer - Free migration to Oracle.
If Oracle can do it, why not IBM.
Mark Townsend
>>The market share for Informix was about 5% in 2004, down 1% from 2003.
>
> Any links to support your figure?
>
Gartner put the Informix product share at 1.4% of Overall RDBMS Market
Share.
I don't believe IDC break out the Informix numbers anymore in their
market share reports.
According to both Gartner and IDC, the IBM DB2 brand (which includes
Informix) is growing slower than the overall market.
rkusenet
>> The market share for Informix was about 5% in 2004, down 1% from 2003.
> Any links to support your figure?
It talks about market share in 2003.
Here is how the market share of Informix was reached.
In 2003, total license sales of RDBMS on Unix/Linux was 2.34 billion dollars.
Informix's share was 140 million. That makes it 5.98%.
Flame: RDBMS on Windows amounted to 2.79 billion.
That means database sell more on windows than on Unix.
So much for MS being crap in OS.
Serge Rielau
> Here is Oracle's exact verbiage from their web site:
>
> Oracle Database Standard Edition may only be used on machines which have
> the ability to run a maximum of four processor cores or on a cluster of
> machines supporting up to a maximum of four processor cores per cluster.
IDS' multithreaded engine can only exploit 4 processors?
Cheers
Serge
--
Serge Rielau
DB2 SQL Compiler Development
IBM Toronto Lab
DA Morgan
1.4%? That is unsustainable no matter the passion of those that use it.
Though, I guess, Informix could become for IBM what Rdb is for Oracle.
DA Morgan
> DA Morgan wrote:
>
>> Here is Oracle's exact verbiage from their web site:
>>
>> Oracle Database Standard Edition may only be used on machines which
>> have the ability to run a maximum of four processor cores or on a
>> cluster of machines supporting up to a maximum of four processor cores
>> per cluster.
>
> So do you still stand by your comparison to SE? Are you alleging that
> IDS' multithreaded engine can only exploit 4 processors?
>
> Cheers
> Serge
I didn't make the comparison ... I asked a question ... too nuanced
for you?
Still looking for someone to point me to a list of features included
in IDS with a comparison against SE and EE so I can see for myself
whether the comparison is valid.
The arguments I've seen, so far, would make MS Access a reasonable
competitor for IDS: No limit on CPUs.
Mark Townsend
marketshare in 2003 ? i.e about 1.8% in 2003, now 1.4% in 2004, over .4%
of a percent drop, or approximately a total of 108 million in revenue
(or a 22% drop in revenue year over year). Those figures are believable
Mark Townsend
Sorry - error in the numbers.
It's 7.06 billion not 7.6 billion.
That makes the calculations as follows:
About 2% market share in 2003
.6 of a percent drop
Approximate revenue in 2004 of around 98 million (or a 30% drop in
revenue year over year)
$100 million in revenue a year, dropping by 30% a year ? I hope Janet
doesn't have to pay the vig on the loan personally :-)
rkusenet
Mark,
To get the context of 5.8%, please read my earlier
reponse here
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.databases.informix/browse_frm/thread/23efaf53d18c215b/e5fa01410ec60ad1#e5fa01410ec60ad1
SQL Server's share is around 19% overall, but an awesome 60%
in Windows. So to get the right prespective, I think one should
mention that.
Mark Townsend
>
> Mark,
> To get the context of 5.8%, please read my earlier
> reponse here
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.databases.informix/browse_frm/thread/23efaf53d18c215b/e5fa01410ec60ad1#e5fa01410ec60ad1
>
> SQL Server's share is around 19% overall, but an awesome 60%
> in Windows. So to get the right prespective, I think one should
> mention that.
>
I did read it, I was in fact pointing out that I think your selection of
market size is flawed. I don't see how you can exclude Windows, its the
largest market for all of the vendors, including Informix (I presume);
and to provide comparable numbers to the other vendor's reported numbers
in the article you posted, you need to take the whole market.
Jim Kennedy
"rkusenet" <rkus...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2dnif.1163$wf2....@news20.bellglobal.com...
> "Bob Jones" <em...@me.not> wrote in message
> news:RLmif.34038$6e1....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
>
about 5% in 2004, down 1%
bought Informix to
> > increase its database share on UNIX. So far I am not seeing it
happening. If Informix sales
> > continue to dwindle, customers will be forced to migrate soon.
>
> of course true. When did I ever dispute this? All I said was that 1.4% is
on
> all platforms, not on LUW.
>
reasons:-
>
> - to assuage concerns of big Informix customers like Wal-Mart. It is
strongly
> rumored that IBM bought Informix upon advise from Wal-Mart. One thing is
> sure. With IBM as its new owner, Informix can never go bankrupt, leaving
> its customer high and dry.
>
> rapidly incorporating Informix technology. Like HADR. Version 9.0 of Db2,
> known as Viper is out on beta now. It has table partitioning. I am pretty
sure
> that Informix's proven and stable fragmentation technology is behind it.
>
matter
> of another one yr before it will have almost all features expected in an
enterprise
> class database.
>
> I was one of those who suspected IBM's intention back in 2001. Indeed some
> IBM employees did admit that they never wanted Informix to succeed. But
> what they saw in next few years after Apr 2001 was that Informix customers
> are fanatical about their product and the reputation is excellent. That
forced
> them to change their tactics.
> I was genuinely surprised to see the features in Informix's latest version
10.
> IBM has added lot of new exciting features. If they were interested in
killing it,
> why bother keeping Informix up-to-date. This doesn't make sense.
>
that
> in another 1/2 yrs DB2 will match Informix in features and performance
> that no one wants to learn Informix skills, the demise will be further
accelerated.
>
> Oracle customers with a version of DB2 which can stand up to Oracle,
> when they tell customers "get a hardware from us and you will get DB2
> consulting company till few months back and they lost out a multi million
> contract to IBM Global Services in NY. I believe my company was
> winning the bid till about the last day, when an IBM rep wrote a cheque
> of few million dollars to the customer as cash back if they buy hardware,
> software and services from IBM. Don't take it literally, but what I
mentioned
> actually happened. It was too tempting for the client to not ink the deal
with
> IBMGS.
>
> BTW given the predatory tactics of Larry Ellison, why didn't he buy
Informix
> in 2001. He would have easily killed it by now. Was that a big mistake by
> him. Is that a reason why he does not want to repeat the mistake with
> Peoplesoft and Siebel.
>
>
>
>
>
>
Rumor has it IBM picked up Informix due to potential questions about patent
infringement. It was easier to give Informix to IBM than fight it.
Jim
Serge Rielau
> Serge Rielau wrote:
> I didn't make the comparison ... I asked a question ... too nuanced
> for you?
"But wouldn't a more accurate comparison of IDS to Oracle be with
Oracle's Standard Edition?"
a question and suggestion.
"Wouldn't it be accurate to say that you are a hypocrite?"
.. not that I'm saying you are of course... ;-)
rkusenet
You do have a point.
Bob Jones
> "Bob Jones" <em...@me.not> wrote
>
>> If not to improve the market share of its databases, what do you think
>> the ultimate goal of these 2 actions are? In fact, I could care less
>> about what IBM's real motive was, the only thing matters is the bottom
>> line outcome.
>
> ** The ultimate goal is to get Informix customer as DB2.
>
Doesn't that translate to improving market share?
> ** The ultimate goal is to make Db2 the only competitor to Oracle.
>
I am afraid that will never happen, especially without increasing the market
share.
>> I don't think IBM wants to kill it quickly. Quite the contrary, they want
>> to give it life-support for as long as possible.
>
> The above statement contradicts your earlier statement that IBM wants
> to kill it.
>
My earlier statement? Please quote me if anything I said even remotely
suggesting that.
> To be frank, I am yet to hear a convincing argument on why IBM released
> ver 10 of Informix. I think in the last 5 yrs or so, this is the most
> significant
> release. Lack of a convincing reason is forcing me to give benefit of
> doubt to IBM for the first time since they bought Informix. May be IBM
> is really interested in keeping informix alive, at least till they bring
> DB2
> upto the standard of Informix.
>
Like I said, I have no doubt IBM is trying to keep Informix alive.
>> Yes, but they could migrate to other databases as well.
>
> Well it could not be for two reasons:-
>
> (a) IBM may give them excellent 'moving' allowance. After
> all it is money moving from one pocket to other.
What makes you think other vendors cannot? After all it's money moving from
IBM's pocket to theirs.
> (b) IBM may make the transition easier. I have a hunch
> (though nothing to prove) that majority of informix customer
> use in-house package, or custom developed package. If they
> are using ESQL-C, Informix 4GL then it is not easy to move
> to other databases. IBM is slowing making DB2 and Informix
> compatible from application language point of view. Already
> they have released ESQL/C which is same for both DB2
> and Informix (someone can correct me). It won't be long
> before 4GL is ported to Db2.
>
I hope your hunch is right. After spending all that time and money, it would
be disastrous to find out there is not much left to salvage.
>> Why do you think Oracle would want to buy Informix and then kill it? It
>> would not have done any good.
>
> Yeah right. I guess LarryE loves Mysql so much that he bought InnoDB
> recently. And what about Peoplesoft and Siebel.
>
Maybe he thought those products were worth the prices, and Informix
evidently was not.
> By buying Informix, Oracle would have achieved the following:-
>
> - Deny IBM the ability to fast track development of DB2
> (there is no question that DB2 folks are benefiting from 2000 odd
> engineers of Informix who are rapidly bringing Db2 upto speed)
For $1 billion plus the cost of maintaining and supporting another product
that they already have? I suspect those 2000 engineers don't come cheap.
> - Almost ensure that all Informix customers will migrate to Oracle.
> It must be frustrating to Oracle that nearly 5 yrs after IBM bought,
> they are not able to switch the real customers of Informix to Oracle.
> What I believe is that packaged software customers of Informix
> (that is those using SAP,Peoplesoft) are migrating fast to oracle,
> bcos it is easy. But they are not able to do so for shops that run
> their mission critical applications on Informix. Walmart, Sears,
> HomeDepot,Walgreens,Eckerd,Longs and many more. If Oracle
> had bought Informix, they would have got even those customers
> without much problem.
>
>
I am not sure what you meant by "real customers". Those who use packaged
software are not "real customers"?
How many of those customers have IBM converted to DB2 after 5 years? Has the
return justified the cost? Looking back from today, it does not appear so.
Bob Jones
> Any links to support your figure?
>
http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_127553_11.html
rkusenet
>
> "rkusenet" <rkus...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:ECpif.958$Et5....@news20.bellglobal.com...
>> "Bob Jones" <em...@me.not> wrote
>>
>>> If not to improve the market share of its databases, what do you think the ultimate goal of
>>> these 2 actions are? In fact, I could care less about what IBM's real motive was, the only
>>> thing matters is the bottom line outcome.
>>
>> ** The ultimate goal is to get Informix customer as DB2.
>>
>
> Doesn't that translate to improving market share?
>
>> ** The ultimate goal is to make Db2 the only competitor to Oracle.
> I am afraid that will never happen, especially without increasing the market share.
OK now I understood what you originally meant.
I thought u said that IBM informix to increase the
market share of Informix.
You are right, they want to increase the market share
of DB2 by getting informix customers.
>> Well it could not be for two reasons:-
>>
>> (a) IBM may give them excellent 'moving' allowance. After
>> all it is money moving from one pocket to other.
>
> What makes you think other vendors cannot? After all it's money moving from IBM's pocket to
> theirs.
Well for other vendors it will be a loss to get informix customer for
a bargain price. For IBM this question is moot. So IBM is in a
better position to sustain that process.
For e.g. there is a Gold Bundle schema of licensing. Basically
it means that any existing customer can buy Informix license
with an assurance that it can be switched to DB2 at any time
without paying anything at the time of switch. Not only that,
the customer can run both for a limited period during the
transition. I doubt whether other vendors can match that.
> Maybe he thought those products were worth the prices, and Informix evidently was not.
Or may be LE goofed up in 2001. may be he learnt from that and
that's why bought InnoDb recently.
> For $1 billion plus the cost of maintaining and supporting another product that they already
> have? I suspect those 2000 engineers don't come cheap.
Within a year, those Informix engineers were working on both Db2
and Informix. I have friends working in menlo park who told me this.
Another friend of mine lost his chance to work for IBM. Apparently
he was almost selected in early 2001 when suddenly IBM told him
that they have put a freeze on all recruitments. Much later he came to
know that IBM decided to halt hiring database engineers bcos they
were getting ifmx engineers.
> I am not sure what you meant by "real customers". Those who use packaged software are not "real
> customers"?
Sorry real customers I mean those who bought Informix bcos
they wanted it. When you buy package solution, u have to go
for the database whether you are a shop or not.
Merril Lynch in Jacksonville, FL was using Informix happily
for one of their products until they bought a package to integrate
with their system, which runs on Oracle only. Pretty soon they
junked informix once they questioned the wisdom of maintaining
two different databases. How happy were they with O as compared
to Informix, I will let it pass here :-)
> How many of those customers have IBM converted to DB2 after 5 years? Has the return justified
> the cost? Looking back from today, it does not appear so.
IBM's $1b is quite well spent if you take into account all this.
Good database engineers, proven technology of Informix
which can be fast-tracked into Db2 without reinventing
the wheel. Just wait until Viper is out.
RollForward Wizard
Two words describe Informix, "embedded" and "legacy". One word is being
marketed by IBM, the rest is just pure market reality. The only place
left to go after embedded is entombed. Informix is living in a coma, and
the damn thing just never seems to die, somebody take out the feeding tube!
Informix will eventually fade into obscurity. Pity. All that goodness,
all that greatness, all that hard work, all that 1.4% market share, down
the shitter.
rkusenet
"RollForward Wizard" <rollf...@rollforward.com> wrote in message
news:7wtif.17164$c06....@fe04.usenetserver.com...
> Bob Jones wrote:
>> "xiaoxin" <lixia...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1133132461....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>>>> The market share for Informix was about 5% in 2004, down 1% from 2003.
>>> Any links to support your figure?
>>>
>>
>> http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_127553_11.html
> Well that just about says it all. Great link.
Yes a great link.
I am wondering who are those customers who actually bought
110 million dollars worth of new license of Informix. Are they
existing customers buying new license as their business grew
or totally new customers.
Also it is important to note that SQL Server grew by 18% despite
not coming out with any new version. In fact in 2004 SS2000 was
4 yrs old. Tells a lot about it, right?
Obnoxio The Clown
rkusenet said:
>
> So much for MS being crap in OS.
They sell many more Kia Picantos than Ferraris. Therefore Ferraris are crap.
Oh, hang on. It's Kias that are crap, despite the fact that millions of
idiots buy them.
--
Bye now,
Obnoxio
"C'est pas parce qu'on n'a rien ` dire qu'il faut fermer sa gueule"
- Coluche
did i mention i like nulls? heck, i even go so far as to say that all
columns in a table except the primary key could/should be nullable. this
has certain advantages, for example, if you need to insert a child record
and you don't have a parent row for it, just do an insert into the parent
table with the primary key value (everything else null), and voila,
relational integrity is preserved. but this is, admittedly, a bit
controversial among modellers.
--r937, dbforums.com
sending to informix-list
Serge Rielau
Obnoxio The Clown
DA Morgan said:
>
> Serge Rielau wrote:
>> DA Morgan wrote:
>>
>>> Here is Oracle's exact verbiage from their web site:
>>>
>>> Oracle Database Standard Edition may only be used on machines which
>>> have the ability to run a maximum of four processor cores or on a
>>> cluster of machines supporting up to a maximum of four processor cores
>>> per cluster.
>>
>> So do you still stand by your comparison to SE? Are you alleging that
>> IDS' multithreaded engine can only exploit 4 processors?
>>
>> Cheers
>> Serge
>
> for you?
>
> in IDS with a comparison against SE and EE so I can see for myself
> whether the comparison is valid.
>
> The arguments I've seen, so far, would make MS Access a reasonable
> competitor for IDS: No limit on CPUs.
You forgot about the replication. Or can Access do that too?
Mark Townsend
> IBM's $1b is quite well spent if you take into account all this.
> Good database engineers, proven technology of Informix
> which can be fast-tracked into Db2 without reinventing
> the wheel. Just wait until Viper is out.
I do not believe IBM gained 2000 database engineers when they bought
Informix. I doubt that Informix every had 2000 database engineers
working for them at any one time. I presume you are talking about in
development engineers, as opposed to support engineers.
I think the $1 billion spent on Informix was a huge mistake. IBM could
have spent the $1 billion on better marketing of DB2, better rewarding
their sales force for DB2 sales, and funding ISVs to port more quickly
to DB2. This would have gained much more marketshare for them by now.
Bob Jones
>> the return justified the cost? Looking back from today, it does not
>> appear so.
>
> IBM's $1b is quite well spent if you take into account all this.
> Good database engineers, proven technology of Informix
> which can be fast-tracked into Db2 without reinventing
> the wheel. Just wait until Viper is out.
>
It won't matter if all this does not translate into market share.
xiaoxin
<<
"Much of IBM's growth was generated by its DB2 on the zSeries platform,
and IBM's DB2 sales on the Unix platform performed well with nearly 9
percent growth," Colleen Graham, principal analyst at Gartner.
>>
RollForward Wizard
> "RollForward Wizard" <rollf...@rollforward.com> wrote in message
> news:7wtif.17164$c06....@fe04.usenetserver.com...
>> Bob Jones wrote:
>>> "xiaoxin" <lixia...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:1133132461....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>>>>> The market share for Informix was about 5% in 2004, down 1% from 2003.
>>>> Any links to support your figure?
>>>>
>>> http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_127553_11.html
>> Well that just about says it all. Great link.
>
> Yes a great link.
>
> I am wondering who are those customers who actually bought
> 110 million dollars worth of new license of Informix. Are they
> existing customers buying new license as their business grew
> or totally new customers.
>
It's still only 1.4% of the market, and that means it's half of what
it ever was. Almost a beginning market position. It would take a
real killer ad campaign and a real marketing blitz at this point to
get it even into a position worth mentioning. Not everyone can work
for Walmart, Sears, or Home Depot, and give Informix a pat on the back
as if it mattered.
> Also it is important to note that SQL Server grew by 18% despite
> not coming out with any new version. In fact in 2004 SS2000 was
> 4 yrs old. Tells a lot about it, right?
>
Ya. Marketing. Windows is THE battleground for DB2 and anyone else wanting to
take the top spot. Interesting that if Informix people could actually articulate
some of the competitive advantages of Informix over Oracle ( re: replication,
clustering, HA, etc ) into the marketing message, that it might stand a chance
of making a comeback. But IBM can make the same message with DB2, they hardly
need Informix to say that or anything. All that new effort into a 1% market
cannot possibly be sustained forever.
John Carlson
<neil....@ardenta.com> wrote:
>"Bob Jones" <em...@me.not> wrote in message
>news:x5bif.19109$BZ5....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
>>
>
>>> Much I like Informix (though I stopped working with it for about a year
>>> now), I also think it is toast for reasons totally different. What
>>> is happening is that Informix skilled people are rapidly shrinking, just
>>> like
>>> Sybase and other fading products. In my last project I worked with some
>>> UK folks and was shocked to learn that they were exposed to only one
>>> RDBMS: SQL Server, right thru their college days. Little bit of research
>>> told me that this trend is bit global with most of the fresh graduates
>>> hardly
>>> proficient in lesser known databases.
>
>I help companies equip for a market-leading app in Europe that remains
>Informix-only. I fear for how long though: the last two customers have both
>expressed concern not at Informix itself or even IBM's plans for it, but the
>in shortage of skilled staff. Good for me selling managed service of
>course, but not good for Informix long-term.
>
Good testimony to its reliability . . . . and I'd like to think that
there's still skilled Informix help around . . . . .
>I previously mentioned that we recruited another graduate trainee this
>summer, the first for a couple of years. We got a very good one but he,
>like most people we interviewed this time, and in stark contrast to even 2
>years ago, hadn't even covered SQL Server even in Computer Science: the unis
>seem to think Access is sufficient grounding in database theory now!
>
Ouch! that sounds painful . . . .
JWC
DA Morgan
> Serge Rielau wrote:
>
>
>>DA Morgan wrote:
>>
>>>Serge Rielau wrote:
>>>I didn't make the comparison ... I asked a question ... too nuanced
>>>for you?
>>
>>*lol* I quote:
>>"But wouldn't a more accurate comparison of IDS to Oracle be with
>>Oracle's Standard Edition?"
>>Daniel, I may not be a native speaker, but I know the different between
>>a question and suggestion.
>>"Wouldn't it be accurate to say that you are a hypocrite?"
>>.. not that I'm saying you are of course... ;-)
>>
>
> OSE is limited to 4CPUs whether SMP or clustered. IDS? Not so limited.
>
> Seems that platform bigotry got in the way.
>
> Now if you want a better comparision to SQLServer, just look at Derby. ;-)
Not at all. I never once said IDS was equivalent to Oracle SE:
Not EE. I asked a question that so far not one of you has had
the ability to answer.
Try to the Carl Rove method if you like but the question still stands.
And so far the one or two things you have pointed two could just as
easily be responded two with one or two things Oracle SE does that IDS
can't even dream of doing such as RAC. So ... either answer the question
directly or acknowledge that you can't ... or won't.
Again: Is there a feature comparison chart published anywhere?
HansF
>
>> > Does anyone have a feature-by-feature comparison that would indicate
>> > otherwise?
>>
>> If Oracle EE could 1) run on more than 4 CPUs, 2) included DataGuard (IDS
>> HDR), 3) included Streams Replication (IDS ER), ... - then it would be
> fair
>> to say that IDS should be compared to Oracle EE.
>
> Opps - mixed up my EE with my SS... ;-)
Perhaps you mixed it up with SE (Standard Edition). The SS is definitely
marching to the Microsoft tune, not the Oracle one.
--
Hans Forbrich
Canada-wide Oracle training and consulting
mailto: Fuzzy.GreyBeard_at_gmail.com
*** Top posting replies guarantees I won't respond. ***
HansF
>
> Also it is important to note that SQL Server grew by 18% despite
> not coming out with any new version. In fact in 2004 SS2000 was
> 4 yrs old. Tells a lot about it, right?
Based on what? Once upon a time, Microsoft used to count any delivery of
any Microsoft OS as a client to SQL Server and included that in the total
of delivered SQL Server installations, whether used or not. Makes one
wonder if such reporting is reoccurring.
Noons
It's a Gartner market "analysis". Any semblance to what the
real world does is pure coincidence...
Captain Pedantic
news:Xns971B97EA6D3...@70.169.32.36...
> "Madison Pruet" <mpr...@comcast.net> wrote in news:zaCdnbj28tCCqxfeRVn-
> t...@comcast.com:
>
>>
>>>
>>> I think you meant SE. EE runs on an unlimited number of processors and
>>> includes Streams and DataGuard.
>>
>> Geesh - Oracle has almost as many anagrams as IBM. ;-)
>
>
> ANAGRAMS? I think not.
>
> ACRONYMS? perhaps
Oi! That's my job!
Serge Rielau
checked for ADD (attention deficit disorder) ;-)
Try this (works in DB2 for LUW):
CREATE TABLE FROM(SELECT INT);
SELECT FROM FROM SELECT;
Or
CREATE TABLE AS(AS INT);
SELECT AS FROM FROM AS SELECT;
SELECT AS AS FROM AS AS SELECT;
*madgiggle*
Serge
Captain Pedantic
> Well for other vendors it will be a loss to get informix customer for
> a bargain price. For IBM this question is moot. So IBM is in a
> better position to sustain that process.
> For e.g. there is a Gold Bundle schema of licensing. Basically
> it means that any existing customer can buy Informix license
> with an assurance that it can be switched to DB2 at any time
> without paying anything at the time of switch. Not only that,
> the customer can run both for a limited period during the
> transition. I doubt whether other vendors can match that.
Actually the Gold Bundle programme has been all-but-discontinued, as it was
being used by sales teams as a vehicle for dressing up Informix maintenance
renewals as Gold Bundle licence sales (sales teams get remunerated on new
licence sales but not maintenance renewals). Here in Blighty I have never
heard of an IDS customer moving to DB2. There are plenty of Informix users
on Gold Bundles though!
meh...@querix.com
On 27 Nov 2005 at 16:33, rkusenet wrote:
> "Bob Jones" <em...@me.not> wrote
> IBM is slowing making DB2 and Informix
> compatible from application language point of view. Already
> they have released ESQL/C which is same for both DB2
> and Informix (someone can correct me). It won't be long
> before 4GL is ported to Db2.
ESQL/C and 4GL have already been ported to DB2 and
Oracle
SQL Server
PostgresSQL
MySQL
SAP
And many more ODBC DBs.
They are the same for all databases.
sending to informix-list
Obnoxio The Clown
...but if he combs his hair differently, no-one would see it.
Obnoxio The Clown
PuntAndPuntOften
sold, it made strategic sense for us to migrate. We moved to Oracle
about a year later. And, yes, the Informix skills will begin to fade.
fra...@gmail.com
development staff from Informix in the 90's so as to play catch up with
the Informix technology. Anybody else have the same recollection?
DA Morgan
>>Again: Is there a feature comparison chart published anywhere?
>
>
> www.iiug.org/resources/articles/IDS10vsOracle10g.pdf
Thank you.
caver
IBM is much more expensive than Oracle.
We love Informix and had never even considered switching from Informix
to any other db until we got our renewal quote.
Since the "best and final" quote from IBM is still four to five times
what Oracle is quoting, we will soon be implementing
a head to head comparison between Oracle and Informix.
When the cost of Oracle is 150K versus 750K for Informix IDS the
comparison is just a formality.
The difference for us is towfold:
1) We require relatively simple replication. For Informix, any E.R.
replication
requires IDS, but Oracle allows simple bi-direction table subsets in
the Oracle
equivalent of Informix Workgroup.
2) We reworked our front end app using VB with ODBC. In the old
application we took one access hit per
named user, now one user accounts for four or five server connections
due to multiple background
db access (I don't know if it is a VB or a ODBC thing).
-Oracle only charges a premium price for full database sync in what
they call multi-master replication.
-Oracle has either a per processor charge or a named user charge where
one named user equals one
database access even in VB/ODBC.
They also have built in web development tools that seem (from the
Oracle sales guy) to take the place of
some Informix development tools. I have doubs about this though.
So most likely we will be heading down the Oracle highway (reluctantly)
due to the lower cost.
RollForward Wizard
You should check out DB2 features first before going to Oracle, and especially
DB2 HADR, a chimpanzee can set it up it's so simple.
Plus you get all the same basic functionality of IDS in DB2, just a little
rearranging of terminology, etc. DB2 will most like be more to your liking
as it is more-like-Informix than Oracle, but hey, if you really want Oracle,
go for it.
DA Morgan
> You should check out DB2 features first before going to Oracle, and
> especially DB2 HADR, a chimpanzee can set it up it's so simple.
And apparently some do. But given Oracle's can be set up with not much
more than a few mouse clicks how much simpler is it?
Or are you making a vague reference to a neolithic version of Oracle
long out of support?
Gentsch, Sam
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-inf...@iiug.org [mailto:owner-inf...@iiug.org]
On Behalf Of caver
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 11:24 AM
To: inform...@iiug.org
Subject: Re: informix market share
>The difference for us is towfold:
>1) We require relatively simple replication. For Informix, any E.R.
>Replication requires IDS, but Oracle allows simple bi-direction table
subsets in the Oracle equivalent of Informix Workgroup.
You can do ER with Workgroup, it just requires an additional ER license.
sending to informix-list
RollForward Wizard
> RollForward Wizard wrote:
>
>> You should check out DB2 features first before going to Oracle, and
>> especially DB2 HADR, a chimpanzee can set it up it's so simple.
>
> And apparently some do. But given Oracle's can be set up with not much
> more than a few mouse clicks how much simpler is it?
>
It's not just a few mouse clicks it's also the licensing scheme(s) that
are drastically different between Oracle and IBM, they are very very different
pricing and licensing models. As a customer you owe it to yourself to at least
see what the difference is.
> Or are you making a vague reference to a neolithic version of Oracle
> long out of support?
I'm not making any reference to Oracle other than if someone so chooses
to use it, then so be it. But they really need to understand what they
are getting themselves into.
Everett Mills
> -----Original Message-----
> From: RollForward Wizard [mailto:rollf...@rollforward.com]
> Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 12:03 PM
> To: inform...@iiug.org
> Subject: Re: informix market share
>
> > I would agree with Xiaoxin. We just found out with our renewal that
> > IBM is much more expensive than Oracle.
> > We love Informix and had never even considered switching from
Informix
> > to any other db until we got our renewal quote.
> > Since the "best and final" quote from IBM is still four to five
times
> > what Oracle is quoting, we will soon be implementing
> > a head to head comparison between Oracle and Informix.
> >
> > When the cost of Oracle is 150K versus 750K for Informix IDS the
> > comparison is just a formality.
Everything being equal, Informix shouldn't cost five times more
than an equivalent Oracle set up. Maybe before you do anything else,
you should see about how your Informix license is set up and possibly
restructuring it. For example, we rebuilt our licenses and reduced our
annual support cost by more than 75%. Admittedly, there were some
transition costs, but the savings paid for it.
--EEM
> >
> > The difference for us is towfold:
> > 1) We require relatively simple replication. For Informix, any E.R.
> > replication
> > requires IDS, but Oracle allows simple bi-direction table subsets
in
> > the Oracle
> > equivalent of Informix Workgroup.
> >
> > 2) We reworked our front end app using VB with ODBC. In the old
> > application we took one access hit per
> > named user, now one user accounts for four or five server
connections
> > due to multiple background
> > db access (I don't know if it is a VB or a ODBC thing).
> >
> > -Oracle only charges a premium price for full database sync in what
> > they call multi-master replication.
> >
> > -Oracle has either a per processor charge or a named user charge
where
> > one named user equals one
> > database access even in VB/ODBC.
> >
> > They also have built in web development tools that seem (from the
> > Oracle sales guy) to take the place of
> > some Informix development tools. I have doubs about this though.
> >
> > So most likely we will be heading down the Oracle highway
(reluctantly)
> > due to the lower cost.
> >
>
> You should check out DB2 features first before going to Oracle, and
> especially
> DB2 HADR, a chimpanzee can set it up it's so simple.
>
> Plus you get all the same basic functionality of IDS in DB2, just a
little
> rearranging of terminology, etc. DB2 will most like be more to your
> liking
> as it is more-like-Informix than Oracle, but hey, if you really want
> Oracle,
> go for it.
sending to informix-list
Bob Jones
>>>I did read it, I was in fact pointing out that I think your selection of
>>>market size is flawed. I don't see how you can exclude Windows, its the
>>>largest market for all of the vendors, including Informix (I presume);
>>>and to provide comparable numbers to the other vendor's reported numbers
>>>in the article you posted, you need to take the whole market.
>>
>>
>> You do have a point.
>>
>>
>
What is this deal with including mainframes or not? Should we start talking
about DB2 market share including mainframes, and Informix excluding
mainframes?
DA Morgan
> DA Morgan wrote:
>
>> RollForward Wizard wrote:
>>
>>> You should check out DB2 features first before going to Oracle, and
>>> especially DB2 HADR, a chimpanzee can set it up it's so simple.
>>
>>
>> And apparently some do. But given Oracle's can be set up with not much
>> more than a few mouse clicks how much simpler is it?
>>
> It's not just a few mouse clicks it's also the licensing scheme(s) that
> are drastically different
Whoa ... slow down. You made a specific statement about Oracle and now
you are trying to blur the subject by bringing in differences in
licensing: Not acceptable.
Yes it is just a couple of mouse clicks in Oracle if one uses the
recommended tool, OEM, to configure RMAN. Has been for years.
>> Or are you making a vague reference to a neolithic version of Oracle
>> long out of support?
>
> I'm not making any reference to Oracle other than if someone so chooses
> to use it, then so be it. But they really need to understand what they
> are getting themselves into.
And you don't think that your statement is equally true of any piece of
software including their operating system? Would you recommend someone
get into DB2 or Informix without really understanding it? Not even a
newbie would say ... yeah go jump into an enterprise RDBMS without
learning about it first.
But if you find that person I've got some really great beach front
property, in Louisiana, I'd like to sell them.
DA Morgan
> Everything being equal, Informix shouldn't cost five times more
> than an equivalent Oracle set up. Maybe before you do anything else,
> you should see about how your Informix license is set up and possibly
> restructuring it. For example, we rebuilt our licenses and reduced our
> annual support cost by more than 75%. Admittedly, there were some
> transition costs, but the savings paid for it.
>
> --EEM
If one takes the OP at his word, 500% more than an equivalent system
then a 75% savings would still make it substantially more expensive.
If this wasn't the second person to post that the cost of Informix was
substantially higher than Oracle I'd have never believed it.
RollForward Wizard
> RollForward Wizard wrote:
>> DA Morgan wrote:
>>
>>> RollForward Wizard wrote:
>>>
>>>> You should check out DB2 features first before going to Oracle, and
>>>> especially DB2 HADR, a chimpanzee can set it up it's so simple.
>>>
>>>
>>> And apparently some do. But given Oracle's can be set up with not much
>>> more than a few mouse clicks how much simpler is it?
>>>
>> It's not just a few mouse clicks it's also the licensing scheme(s) that
>> are drastically different
>
> Whoa ... slow down. You made a specific statement about Oracle and now
> you are trying to blur the subject by bringing in differences in
> licensing: Not acceptable.
>
I haven't used the latest version of Oracle ( any Oracle ) since 9i, and
I __AM__ an Oracle customer, having actually purchased the software. I can't
tell you DB2 is or is not easier to set up with HADR than Oracle HADR, or
whatever it is called. I do speak from my own experience over the past 20
years using non-Oracle databases and also installing Oracle on a couple of
occasions. I marveled at the installation of Oracle, which never seemed to
end, and the footprint was way over 5 GB for 9i, and I can't even remember
what all that shit was that was installed. So, yes, to scratch the surface,
I'll take a really big gamble and say DB2 is easier to learn than Oracle. The
total installed footprint of DB2 was just a little over 500MB, and I think that
was with extra stuff thrown in that I didn't need to install. HADR __COMES_WITH__
DB2, so it is seamlessly integrated into the system. It probably comes with
Informix but I don't know I haven't really paid attention to Informix. I have
actually set up HADR on DB2, and I know that if an old geezer like me can do
it anybody can do it.
Oracle is more about corporate culture than anything really to do with
technology, which is the point to my statements. Most of the purchase path
has to be engineered at the very top of an organization simply because of the
cost, and how Oracle is marketed, from the top down. It has worked well for
Oracle, but that doesn't mean it's the right choice for every business,
large or small. When people say they're dumping what they have and heading
for Oracle, it's laughable because of the hidden costs associated with
Oracle that will usually get people heading in the opposite direction once
they actually connect with what Oracle is all about. It's not great
software, it's not easy to learn, and it isn't a friendly company to do
business with unless you're ready to really just piss your money away.
God bless Larry Ellison, he plays ball with guys that love to spend
money. If you're into his game God Bless You too. It just isn't for
every business.
> Yes it is just a couple of mouse clicks in Oracle if one uses the
> recommended tool, OEM, to configure RMAN. Has been for years.
>
>>> Or are you making a vague reference to a neolithic version of Oracle
>>> long out of support?
>>
>> I'm not making any reference to Oracle other than if someone so chooses
>> to use it, then so be it. But they really need to understand what they
>> are getting themselves into.
>
> And you don't think that your statement is equally true of any piece of
> software including their operating system? Would you recommend someone
> get into DB2 or Informix without really understanding it? Not even a
> newbie would say ... yeah go jump into an enterprise RDBMS without
> learning about it first.
>
I can tell you without any further discussion on this that Informix,
DB2, Sybase, SQL-Server, MySQL, are ALL EASIER TO LEARN THAN ORACLE.
There is no more to be said about it, you can crow till the fucking
cows come home, Oracle is a beast compared to any other db out there,
it is difficult to manage, has fewer options overall on how to use it,
and it just sucks from an architectural standpoint. Now, believe
what you want, you won't convince me otherwise. And I really don't
care at this point whether or not you agree, there really is a lot
of better choices than Oracle, period.
DA Morgan
>> Whoa ... slow down. You made a specific statement about Oracle and now
>> you are trying to blur the subject by bringing in differences in
>> licensing: Not acceptable.
>>
> Daniel,
>
> I haven't used the latest version of Oracle ( any Oracle ) since 9i, and
> I __AM__ an Oracle customer, having actually purchased the software. I
> can't
> tell you DB2 is or is not easier to set up with HADR than Oracle HADR, or
> whatever it is called.
You are an Oracle customer, as recently as 9i, and you ask: "Oracle
HADR, or whatever it is called?"
Apparently the word "Customer" means something different to you than it
does to me.
I can't think there are more than a handful of Oracle 9i customers that
would ask the question you just asked. And not many more that wouldn't
know about Real Application Clusters, DataGuard, RMAN, Grid Control,
Advanced Replication, Streams, and the other available technologies for
achieving 7x24x365 with both on-site and off-site transparent failover.
I have to confess I did not read the balance of your post based upon the
above. I can not reconcile the question you asked with having any actual
experience with Oracle.
Noons
> > I'm not making any reference to Oracle other than if someone so chooses
> > to use it, then so be it. But they really need to understand what they
> > are getting themselves into.
>
> And you don't think that your statement is equally true of any piece of
> software including their operating system?
You see: for these folks if you are not buying
IBM, you simply do NOT "understand it".
Serge Rielau
like to exclude Windows. I think the term used is "marketshare on modern
OS" ;-)
Cheers
mjb...@gmail.com
>
> I can tell you without any further discussion on this that Informix,
> DB2, Sybase, SQL-Server, MySQL, are ALL EASIER TO LEARN THAN ORACLE.
> There is no more to be said about it, you can crow till the fucking
> cows come home, Oracle is a beast compared to any other db out there,
> it is difficult to manage, has fewer options overall on how to use it,
> and it just sucks from an architectural standpoint. Now, believe
> what you want, you won't convince me otherwise. And I really don't
> care at this point whether or not you agree, there really is a lot
> of better choices than Oracle, period.
>
You probably don't want any further discussion because you have made a
subjective opinion the cornerstone of a very stupid argument.
Ask people from Wales, Iran, France, Germany and the US which is the
easiest language to learn and guess how many answers you will get. So
it does not matter how long you leave your caps lock key on for, you
are just spouting wind.
And if multi version read consistency is such an arhitectural howler,
how come Microsoft who have the only real competitor aside from IBM out
of the databases you mention are trying their hardest to implement it.
It will leave IBM alone with MySQL and Sybase as the only supplier of a
database where you have to code concurrency in your application. Which
is about as attractive as it sounds.
--
MJB
RollForward Wizard
> RollForward Wizard wrote:
>> I can tell you without any further discussion on this that Informix,
>> DB2, Sybase, SQL-Server, MySQL, are ALL EASIER TO LEARN THAN ORACLE.
>> There is no more to be said about it, you can crow till the fucking
>> cows come home, Oracle is a beast compared to any other db out there,
>> it is difficult to manage, has fewer options overall on how to use it,
>> and it just sucks from an architectural standpoint. Now, believe
>> what you want, you won't convince me otherwise. And I really don't
>> care at this point whether or not you agree, there really is a lot
>> of better choices than Oracle, period.
>>
>
> You probably don't want any further discussion because you have made a
> subjective opinion the cornerstone of a very stupid argument.
>
Possible. I didn't start the argument.
> Ask people from Wales, Iran, France, Germany and the US which is the
> easiest language to learn and guess how many answers you will get. So
> it does not matter how long you leave your caps lock key on for, you
> are just spouting wind.
>
Actually, that defers to Daniel, he is the king of spout.
> And if multi version read consistency is such an arhitectural howler,
> how come Microsoft who have the only real competitor aside from IBM out
> of the databases you mention are trying their hardest to implement it.
Well, think about that for a moment. Once Microsoft has it I guess
customers certainly won't want to spend their money with Oracle now
will they? Ha!
> It will leave IBM alone with MySQL and Sybase as the only supplier of a
> database where you have to code concurrency in your application. Which
> is about as attractive as it sounds.
>
Is that such a bad thing? Your statements appear to demean other engines
as being inferior to Oracle without this "feature". But what are customers
really buying when they buy an Oracle database engine? Old technology.
The engine never seems to change, just the wrapping and marketing. For this
one feature you claim to put Oracle on top, one has to consider all the
other non-features the engine brings with it, especially when all
you have to do is evaluate other products and see the comparisons. You
begin to see the limitations, the restrictions, the narrow band of options
that Oracle really has, meaning it really can only be set up with very few
architectural options compared to other products out there. It's not that
great. If YOU are the one actually putting the money on the table to
spend it on Oracle or something else you would do the comparisons. But
I know you haven't and probably won't. Ego works, and Larry knows it.
But back to my original point, you won't convince me that "Oracle is
as easy to use as DB2". I just won't believe it. People that think
Oracle "technology" is great really haven't used other products or
other architectures, just like Microsoft-only people, so they really
don't know. Oracle people get sucked into Larry's megalomania, brashness,
and bigger-is-better mentality. If that's for you, go for it. But
it doesn't equate into better products, better customer service or a
better way to do things. To non-Oracle people it just looks like
what it is.
hpuxrac
RollForward Wizard
> Better support? Hmmm not quite what we are seeing
>
wtf are you talking about. Go back and rewrite it.
mjb...@gmail.com
RollForward Wizard wrote:
> mjb...@gmail.com wrote:
> > RollForward Wizard wrote:
>
> But back to my original point, you won't convince me that "Oracle is
> as easy to use as DB2". I just won't believe it.
I was not trying to convince you, just pointing out that your view of
ease of use is not universal and is therefore a meaningless point to
raise. No matter how many times and ways you say it or the number of
capital letters you use.
The fact that you continue with it nevertheless says something.
--
MJB
Mark Townsend
> But what are customers
> really buying when they buy an Oracle database engine? Old technology.
> The engine never seems to change, just the wrapping and marketing.
Well....
The engine does change. Addition of new capabilities such as
partitioning, objects, RAC, XML etc have all required deep surgery on a
large code base.
And on the other hand - the old Informix war cry about "we changed the
engine, Oracle hasn't, therefore we are better" always seemed to me to
speak more of a lack of foresight(*) by the original Informix developers
than anything else.
(*) Specifically the impact that read locking would have in large
parallel environments. IDS managed to mitigate this somewhat with their
redesign, but largely at the cost of horrendous checkpoint operations. I
used to love to go head to head with the Informix 'superior'
architecture conversation. At the time there was a single TPC-C result,
with a single graph in it, that completely blew the whole argument out
of the water. Used to take about 8 minutes to counter.
RollForward Wizard
> RollForward Wizard wrote:
>> mjb...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> RollForward Wizard wrote:
>> But back to my original point, you won't convince me that "Oracle is
>> as easy to use as DB2". I just won't believe it.
>
> I was not trying to convince you, just pointing out that your view of
> ease of use is not universal and is therefore a meaningless point to
> raise. No matter how many times and ways you say it or the number of
> capital letters you use.
>
It's not meaningless, obviously you found something about it that had
meaning. Ease of use to me means that the software is written in such
a way that it has either a high level of difficulty to use or it does
not. If I have to wade through a lot of documentation to find what I
need then the software as a collective work is not "easy" to use. This
is not unique to Oracle, SQL-Server has a lot of problems too, with some
very limited ways to do things. If it takes a longer time to be productive
on oneproduct vs another, then you can say one is "easier" to use than the
other. I have yet to have an easy-to-use experience with Oracle, compared
with other products. As a business person I know what works in providing
solutions, and Oracle is last on the list never first for a variety of
reasons, and it will never get on my list for ease-of-use, whether for
the front-end or the back-end. I just wouldn't want to work that hard,
and pay for software that I know most people wouldn't use if they didn't
have to. Oracle persists because of applications not because it's a
great technology. Larry never sold technology, he sells dreams of great
technology that people with more money than brains buy into, and then
push it down on to people with brains and tell them to make it work.
The Oracle engine has not improved a lot and remains the same as it was
10 years ago. Take away the big apps, and Oracle has no value.
> The fact that you continue with it nevertheless says something.
>
The fact that you responded says something too.
Have a nice day.
DA Morgan
Even if Oracle, the product, was not more than equal to the challenge.
I'd work in Oracle just for the sense of humour and humanity of the
people I'd be working with.
I can not imagine, not even in my wildest dreams, going to a DB2
conference and hearing the likes of Mogens Nørgaard. Somewhere in the
DB2 kernel there is an instruction something like: TRUNCATE PERSPECTIVE.
MBPP
other products or
other architectures"
In the past 20 years I worked with DB2, Rdb, SQL Server and now Oracle.
I can tell you that Oracle is the clear winner for many reasons, the
main reasons in our case are:
- Scalability.
- Availability.
- Multi-platform.
- Read consistency.
- Row level locking.
- Built-in functionalities.
- Transparent partition.
- PL/SQL
Rdb and DB2 were the closest to Oracle and SQL Server the worst by far.
We have Oracle running on HP-UX, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX and Windows 2000
without any problem or incompatibility. We serve thousands of users
around the World with many applications, tools, technologies, etc. I
work with Oracle since 1994 and I never made any training, I learned
all mainly from the Oracle manuals, Technet, forums like this, etc.
Also, when you buy a database you need to take in consideration
available documentation, skills, developers, knowledge, best practices,
country, support, etc. Price is important of course but it must be
weighted with all the above factors. We never bought Oracle because we
"liked" it. The database is the most important component of any
application, it is where the information is managed and stored.
Remember, we are IT/IS professionals, (Information...).
Everett Mills
> -----Original Message-----
> From: DA Morgan [mailto:damo...@psoug.org]
> Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 6:47 PM
> To: inform...@iiug.org
> Subject: Re: informix market share
>
>
> > Everything being equal, Informix shouldn't cost five times more
> > than an equivalent Oracle set up. Maybe before you do anything
else,
> > you should see about how your Informix license is set up and
possibly
> > restructuring it. For example, we rebuilt our licenses and reduced
our
> > annual support cost by more than 75%. Admittedly, there were some
> > transition costs, but the savings paid for it.
> >
> > --EEM
>
> If one takes the OP at his word, 500% more than an equivalent system
> then a 75% savings would still make it substantially more expensive.
> If this wasn't the second person to post that the cost of Informix was
> substantially higher than Oracle I'd have never believed it.
I might point out that before I redid my license I priced Oracle
EE & SE. EE was higher than my previous Informix price and SE was a bit
higher than the price I got from Kazer for IDS Workgroup. But that was
over a year ago. I know IBM has been running deals to lower their
prices, as has Oracle. A call to an IBM business partner is in order
(rather than IBM's own sales force), I think. They are much more
motivated to prove that they can deliver the same or better service and
save you (sometimes lots of) money at the same time.
I'm guessing that many people who bought their Informix Licenses
years ago are paying per user for Enterprise Edition, where per
processor would be much cheaper or paying for Enterprise Edition on
single or dual processor systems, where Workgroup Edition would have
everything except Enterprise Replication and cost much less (of course,
if you're using HADR, you do have to pay for that separately, but it
isn't expensive).
--EEM
> --
> Daniel A. Morgan
> http://www.psoug.org
> damo...@x.washington.edu
> (replace x with u to respond)
sending to informix-list
Obnoxio The Clown
DA Morgan said:
>
> I'd work in Oracle just for the sense of humour and humanity of the
> people I'd be working with.
Like you and Noons? What a bargain!
--
Bye now,
Obnoxio
"C'est pas parce qu'on n'a rien ` dire qu'il faut fermer sa gueule"
- Coluche
did i mention i like nulls? heck, i even go so far as to say that all
columns in a table except the primary key could/should be nullable. this
has certain advantages, for example, if you need to insert a child record
and you don't have a parent row for it, just do an insert into the parent
table with the primary key value (everything else null), and voila,
relational integrity is preserved. but this is, admittedly, a bit
controversial among modellers.
--r937, dbforums.com
sending to informix-list
Obnoxio The Clown
MBPP said:
>
> In the past 20 years I worked with DB2, Rdb, SQL Server and now Oracle.
But not with Informix. And since you're posting on
comp.databases.informix, might I suggest UPDATE STATISTICS?
mjb...@gmail.com
RollForward Wizard wrote:
> mjb...@gmail.com wrote:
> > RollForward Wizard wrote:
> >> mjb...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>> RollForward Wizard wrote:
> >> But back to my original point, you won't convince me that "Oracle is
> >> as easy to use as DB2". I just won't believe it.
> >
> > I was not trying to convince you, just pointing out that your view of
> > ease of use is not universal and is therefore a meaningless point to
> > raise. No matter how many times and ways you say it or the number of
> > capital letters you use.
> >
>
> It's not meaningless, obviously you found something about it that had
> meaning.
I pointed out that I found your post to be meaningless, because
surprise, I found it meaningless.
Obviously you are wrong again.
RollForward Wizard
But how could I be wrong about something if there was no meaning to
what I said? It would just be meaningless, not wrong. If it was wrong,
then it would have meaning. I don't mean to argue the point with you
since you obviously think I'm wrong--er was it meaningless--now I'm
confused! Is that how Oracle people think? Gosh, I wouldn't want to
be around those kind of people they are too confusing!
Bob Jones
"Serge Rielau" <sri...@ca.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:3v2rq0F...@individual.net...
I forgot that IBMers consider mainframe a mordern OS.
DA Morgan
> If I have to wade through a lot of documentation to find what I
> need then the software as a collective work is not "easy" to use.
You may be able to use some products without reading documentation. But
you will not be competent. Even MS Access requires training if you want
to use it for more than electronic 3x5 cards.
> This is not unique to Oracle, SQL-Server has a lot of problems too, with some
> very limited ways to do things. If it takes a longer time to be productive
> on oneproduct vs another, then you can say one is "easier" to use than the
> other.
And you've seen double-blind studies conducted by university researchers
on this or you are about to tell us about a friend of your aunt Millie
who once had to optimize a SQL statement.
> I have yet to have an easy-to-use experience with Oracle, compared
> with other products.
Maybe that says something about you. I can direct you to someone that
will say the exact opposite. So this is fluff and should be discounted.
> As a business person I know what works in providing solutions,
Must be lonely at the top with more than 98% of the people on the planet
disagreeing with your choice.
> Larry never sold technology, he sells dreams of great
> technology that people with more money than brains buy into, and then
> push it down on to people with brains and tell them to make it work.
Yep the entire world is stupid and you, and only you, know what is best.
So how come you aren't the CTO of a major corporation?
> The Oracle engine has not improved a lot and remains the same as it was
> 10 years ago. Take away the big apps, and Oracle has no value.
ROFL.
mjb...@gmail.com
You were wrong about Oracle not having technical merit.
The only reason you gave for this was that you find it harder to learn
than other databases. Obviously this is only one viewpoint, as I for
example have another, and some people even prefer Pick for exactly the
same reason. This is the meaningless part.
You were then wrong about me not finding your opinions meaningless in
the context of a technical discussion, because I do. I am not going to
attempt to change your mind on this, and despite judicious use of
capital letters you won't change mine.
Is this still too difficult?
Mark Townsend
> Somewhere in the
> DB2 kernel there is an instruction something like: TRUNCATE PERSPECTIVE.
Hey - thats funny :-)
Does Informix has a REVOKE ALL HOPE FROM USERS command ?