Other Issues

Highlights: Forum 2002 Top 12, JG Perrin Profiled, InfoBahn to North America, and More...

Welcome to the International Informix Users Group (IIUG) Insider! Designed for IIUG members and Informix user group leaders, this contains timely and relevant information for the IBM Informix community.

Contents:

1. IIUG President, Jerry Hamilton, Writes to the Membership
2. Forum 2002's Top 12 (8 & 9 Nov. 2002)
3. Profiling Jean Georges Perrin, IIUG Board Member
4. IBM Informix Road Show for North America Kicks Off in November
5. New Download: AGS' Server Studio JE for IBM Informix Servers
6. Informix Partners: Update Your PartnerWorld Profile
7. IIUG Special Interest Discussion Groups Explained
8. InformixToday October Issue (Vol. VI) Now Available in Color pdf
9. Sql Power Tools Offers IIUG Members 15% Discount
10. IBM Informix Products in IBM Software Catalog
11. Useful Links
12. Closing and Credits

IIUG President, Jerry Hamilton, Writes to the Membership

Jerry Hamilton's first letter to the IIUG membership was posted at http://www.iiug.org/news/letter/jh_21oct02.html last week. In case you haven't read it yet, here are some excerpts to whet your appetite:

"My mission is to keep IIUG growing and to improve its qualitative feel as a stronger community with a promising future and more opportunity. I also believe that IIUG needs to continue developing an ever-stronger relationship with IBM. One that pulls IBM closer to the Informix community that IIUG represents and strives for."

"Steering the momentum involves harnessing and directing all the energy and resources IIUG already has at hand for a stronger community of Informix fans worldwide. Key and foremost is the incoming IIUG Board, which is staffed with a group of outstanding individuals from around the globe, two of whom are located in Europe. "

"Increasing IIUG's reach is paramount. I want stronger local user groups (LUGs) and more of them. I would like them to entertain regional events similar to Washington DC's upcoming Forum 2002. And I want to encourage them to include middle and upper IT management in their activities. "

"Please share this information with your colleagues and your management. Make them part of IIUG. Show them how we deliver information that serves their company and their profession. With more participation, IIUG will offer IBM's management an increasingly compelling reason to pay more attention to our advocacy. "

Forum 2002's Top 12 (8 & 9 Nov. 2002)

Washington Area Informix Users Group - Forum 2002
http://www.iiug.org/waiug

A Two-Day User Group Technical Conference including:

• Keynote Presentations by key IBM Informix and IIUG Executives
   
• Technical Sessions - 12 one hour Technical Sessions on Friday
   
• Tutorials - 7 half Day Tutorials on Saturday
   
• Exhibitors showing products for Informix users.
   
• Forum CD - a CD with software from the IIUG archives and presentations
   

Profiling Jean Georges Perrin, IIUG Board Member

The third IIUG Board member to be profiled by ENews, Jean Georges Perrin, is also new to the IIUG Board. As done before with Jerry Hamilton and Neil Truby, this issue of the Insider includes highlights of the complete interview:

Q: How do you use Informix in your "real" job (DBA, Consultant, Developer, etc.)?

First of all, Dave (Smith, IIUG ENews), thanks for inviting me to this chat.

Surprisingly enough, I do not use Informix directly in my every-day life. I am Project Manager and I manage a bunch of great people who are developing tools around 4GL, so I am always confronted to Informix technologies and products.

Q: How long have you been using Informix products?

I think that all my colleagues on the board are seeing mostly Informix as the database company, but I love all the "classics". I have been playing with 4GL since 1997, and I love those small footprint Online and SE.

Q: What is your role on the IIUG Board?

I am in charge of the LUGs outside North America. I am still learning a lot before I can help out there, especially from James Edmiston our LUGNut. I have already been to an Infobahn event in Paris, where I introduced IIUG to an audience of users. Surprisingly enough they did not know IIUG that well.

Q: Why did you volunteer to be on the Board?

I meet a lot of Informix customers and I have seen their commitment to the products. I have seen their impression of Informix vanishing and feeling kind of left-out. They are also resisting to the sirens of the red logo company or the proprietary platform company. I want to get information from IBM and reassure them that it is not vanishing.

Q: What do you want to accomplish this year on the Board?

I would love to create a LUG in France. I have however a lot of problems finding volunteers (call!), so I might expand my area of recruiting to French speaking countries in the region like Belgium, Switzerland and North Africa.

I also want to make my other fellows on the Board understand what is wine and turn them into connoisseurs, so they can distinguish and appreciate real wines. But that is only if we have time, which seems to lack a lot here!

I also have other projects going on, which I hope I will be able to accomplish while on board. More on that later! I can't say it all now.

Please continue your reading about Jean George's whereabouts, his best Informix story, his worst Informix nightmare, and his family and hobbies at http://www.iiug.org/iiug/bio_jgperrin.html.

IBM Informix Road Show for North America Kicks Off in November

Following the European success with a similar initiative, the North American IBM Informix Marketing group has announced a schedule of "InfoBahn" road shows. The first few events are planned for the US west coast and Canada:

The rest of the continent will be covered during the first half of 2003.

IIUG was instrumental in encouraging IBM to carry out these events, which bring IBM Data Management executives face to face with customers and partners to discuss the future of the IBM Informix product portfolio. Janet Perna, Don Top, Brian Staff and Jerry Keesee, along with such Informix veterans as Carlton Doe, will lead these North American meetings, which are geared for technology executives and business users.

In some cities, Informix local users groups will immediately follow the InfoBahn presentation. In cities where the local group is inactive, IBM will encourage users to join the larger IIUG organization. We hope to ensure that IIUG Board representatives attend as many events as possible.

IBM Marketing and Sales is partnering tightly with the IIUG Board on this InfoBahn campaign. We strongly encourage you to attend your local meeting - and, if possible, bring your senior IT executive!

For an up-to-date list of locations, agenda, and other information, go to http://www.ibm.com/events/infobahn.

New Download: AGS' Server Studio JE for IBM Informix Servers

IIUG has made special arrangements to provide IIUG members with a 20% discount on the Developer and Enterprise Editions of AGS' Server Studio JE for IBM Informix Servers!!!

Server Studio JE, developed by AGS in partnership with IBM, is a set of integrated tools that ship with all IBM Informix servers to support the development, analysis, optimization, deployment, and administration of IBM Informix database applications. Anatole Vishon, of AGS says "It helps you to flatten the learning curve of consolidating, integrating and effectively managing your entire IBM Informix database infrastructure."

Server Studio JE's powerful, user-friendly tools allow you to administer IBM Informix enterprise databases from a single graphical console.

Log on to IIUG Member Area and choose to download Server Studio JE Enterprise Edition. Once 30 days have passed, you may take advantage of this exclusive 20% discount for IIUG members or revert your Enterprise Edition download to its Core Modules at no charge.

Informix Partners: Update Your PartnerWorld Profile

IBM has informed us that the "telenurturing" campaign for Informix members of PartnerWorld for Developers (PWD) in North America, with more than 55% of the members contacted, has been completed. Informix members who have joined PWD since the IBM acquisition were notified that they would receive a "one on one" call from a PWD specialist. Subsequently, PWD Specialists spent most of September talking with Informix members, familiarizing them with the web site, answering questions regarding programs and highlighting Informix- specific benefits within PWD. The word from IBM is that feedback has been very positive. Similar telenurturing campaigns, including event announcements, special PWD offerings and much more, are in the works for 2003.

If for some reason you did not receive a call, please take this time to make sure that your company and contact profile information is up to date. To do that, go to: http://www.developer.ibm.com/membindex.php. Click on "Update Profile". Also, be sure to include your solution in the Global Solution Directory (GSD) so IBM can better tailor their communications to you.

For any PWD program or website questions, in North America contact Partnerline at 800-426-9990. Select the PWD option.

For world wide contacts, visit: http://www.developer.ibm.com/welcome/contacts.html.

IIUG Special Interest Discussion Groups Explained

IUG hosts some 20 special interest discussion groups, allowing hundreds of our members to connect with each other with greater focus and detail than the enormously popular comp.databases.informix (CDI) newsgroup.

Typically, you would have subscribed to one or several of these special interest discussion groups when you became an IIUG member or updated your profile. However, we would like to encourage you to review your selection and take notice of the newer groups, such as:

• partners@iiug.org: The Partners mailing list is designed to meet the unique needs of IBM partners who specialize in Informix products. It is intended to provide an open exchange of information and dialog.
   
• peoplemix@iiug.org: The PeopleMix mailing list is designed to meet the unique needs of PeopleSoft and IBM Informix customers and is intended to provide an open exchange of information and dialog.
   
• sapmix@iiug.org: SAPMix is a discussion list for the use of Informix products with the SAP product.
   

For a complete list of IIUG's special interest discussion groups, please visit http://www.iiug.org/community/SIG_forums_list.html.

InformixToday October Issue (Vol. VI) Now Available in Color pdf

IBM Data Management launched its full-color and graphics version of InformixToday with the October issue. You can find North America, Europe/Middle East/African, and Asia/Pacific versions at:

http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/informix/informixtoday/archives/

If you have not subscribed to InformixToday yet, you can still do so at:

http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/informix/informixtoday/

Sql Power Tools Offers IIUG Members 15% Discount

Sql Power Tools (SPT) is offering IIUG Members for a limited-time a 15% discount on orders* placed before 31 December 2002.

SPT welcomes IIUG members to a trial evaluation at http://www.sqlpower.com to learn how SPT will improve throughput of your database server and monitor your database "with Zero Impact on the database, network, or end users". Please reference offer number: Inf-719. Mary Owens, of SPT, said to IIUG ENews: "Recently voted to DM Reviews Top 100 Businesses for high ratings of vendor expertise, service, and support, SPT is committed to providing the best database monitoring solution. We look forward to showing you how we do it."

IBM Informix Products in IBM Software Catalog

As a result of an IIUG ENews inquiry, IBM wrote us the following note:

The Informix product line was first included in Brazil's 2H 2001 catalog, which mailed October of last year. For North America, the products were added to the Spring 2002 edition, which was the first available opportunity.

Understanding the significance of Informix to IBM's Data Management strategy, we also featured Informix on the front cover.

Please see the new North America (NA) catalog at

http://www-3.ibm.com/software/info/ecatalog/us/
(ENews Hint: Look under the DB2 section)

The reasons why the NA Spring 2002 issue was the first edition in which we could include Informix content were two-fold:

1. The NA Winter 2002 catalog was a re-mail, i.e. the pagination and content of the product module section were not changed from the Late Fall 2001 edition.
    
2. As a key operation requirement of the Catalog environment, we ensure the NA Call Centers have the ability to respond to Informix inquiries and place orders using the IBM ordering system.
    

We're glad that the catalog is a valuable vehicle of information for software acquisition, and we are very sorry that in this situation the remail did not include the most current product line. You can share with your customers that our plan in 2003 is to move the electronic Software Catalog from PDF-based to an interactive HTML version. Our goal is to be in a position to have current product content available to customers as the product line changes. In the meantime, if the customers can let us know their contact info, we can make sure they are on our mailing list as future catalog editions become available.

Useful Links *** Newly Update by Popular Demand ***

Closing and Credits

The International Informix Users Group (IIUG) is an organization designed to enhance communications between IBM and its worldwide user community. IIUG now exceeds 15,000 members and enjoys the support and commitment of IBM's Data Management division. Key programs include local user groups and special interest groups, which we promote and assist from launch through growth.

Sources:	IIUG Board of Directors
Editors:	David Smith, IIUG Board of Directors Fred Hubbard, IIUG Managing Director Paul Etcheverry, IIUG Editor
For comments, please send an email to ug@iiug.org.