Other Issues

Highlights: Informix Tech Support #1, Nancy Profiled, New Gold Programs and More...

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

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

IF YOU EXPERIENCE ANY PROBLEMS ENTERING THE IIUG MEMBER AREA, PLEASE SEND E-MAIL TO WEBMASTER@IIUG.ORG. INCLUDE YOUR NAME, THE E-MAIL ADDRESS YOU ARE REGISTERED UNDER, YOUR IIUG NUMBER (IF AT ALL POSSIBLE), THE WEB BROWSER TYPE/VERSION YOU ARE USING, AND WHAT O/S (IF NOT WINDOWS) IS ON YOUR CLIENT SIDE. THANKS!

Contents:

1. Informix Tech Support Ranked #1 by Prognostics
2. Profiling Nancy Balsbaugh, IIUG Board Member
3. IIUG SIG Discussion Lists Now Available on the Web
4. New and Updated IBM Data Management Gold Programs
5. January User Group Meetings: Wash. DC, Utah & So. Cal.
6. Announcing IBM Software Symposium, Munich, Germany, 19-23 May, 2003
7. Informix Evaluate Migrates to New URL
8. Useful Links
9. Closing and Credits

Informix Tech Support Ranked #1 by Prognostics

Mary Williams, of IBM Data Management Skills Opportunity Development and Awareness submitted the following note to IIUG ENews:

Customer satisfaction is always at the heart of any service and support organization. It's great to hear from Informix customers how much they value our technical support services. It's even better to know that we are setting the pace for others. Informix technical support in North America recently ranked #1 in its software industry benchmark study, which is conducted monthly by Prognostics, an independent customer satisfaction research firm.

In addition to taking the top seat just recently, Informix customers have given us marks high enough to ensure Informix has outpaced the survey average each and every month for the last fifteen months. Our customers measure us in overall support performance, time to reach technical personnel, skill level of technical personnel, keeping customers advised of problem status, time to receive workaround/solution, and effectiveness of workaround/solution. IBM is proud of these achievements and will continue to pursue ways to make its support services even better.

Thank you to our Informix customers for taking the customer satisfaction surveys on the Web. Your input helps us to continue to measure and improve our support effectiveness. We look forward to your continued feedback in 2003.

Profiling Nancy Balsbaugh, IIUG Board Member

It is Nancy Balsbaugh's turn to be profiled by ENews. Her concise and direct response to our questionnaire has been included in full. Please read along and learn about Nancy's commitment to IIUG, her history with Informix products, and a bit about her personal life.

See Nancy and other members of the IIUG Board of directors as captured attending the recent WAIUG Forum 2002 at http://www.iiug.org/iiug/09nov02_board3.html.

IIUG SIG Discussion Lists Now Available on the Web

Over the course of the next 10 days, IIUG will begin to transition all its special interest group (SIG) discussion lists or forums to a new facility whereby they can be accessed via both email and the iiug.org web site. This change is designed to increase the reach and effectiveness of every list by allowing IIUG Members to:

• Participate in discussion via email, web browser or both
• View posted messages by thread (related messages grouped together)
• View all postings, past and present (starting now), online at IIUG.org
• Search all postings by keyword(s)
• Receive a single "digest-style" email of all the day's postings (optional)

If your preferred mode of participation in SIG lists is via email, then this change requires no action on your part, although you may wish to switch to digest-style notification of postings. However, there is a difference in how postings appear in your email and it is important to know how the new forum works so that when posting a reply your message gets associated with the correct discussion thread:

• The "Subject:" line now contains the message number between square brackets. If you reply to a posting, the message number must appear between square brackets on the subject line of your new message. The message number is used to identify which discussion thread the posting belongs to.
• Using "Reply" in your email client application will address your posting to the forum. Using "Reply All" will address your posting to both the forum and the sender of the message being replied to. You will always receive a copy of your own postings.

There is no change in how you sign up for email participation in discussion forums - this is still done via the Member Area of the IIUG.org web site under the button "Subscribe to E-Mail Lists". However, an additional column has been added to allow you to opt for digest- style email notification.

You can enter the web-based forums either from the Member Area or by selecting "Discussion Forums" from the "Community" menu at http://www.iiug.org.

Please send any comments or problem reports to forum@iiug.org.

New and Updated IBM Data Management Gold Programs

Mohan Natraj, IBM's Advocate to the IIUG Board of Directors shared the following announcement with ENews:

IBM announces the IBM Data Management Gold offerings. These offerings are intended for Informix (IDS, XPS and Red Brick) customers who want the flexibility to install or maintain either Informix or DB2 products in whatever combination is required to meet their business needs over time. This announcement includes a total of five product offerings - updates to two previously released Gold offerings (Transaction Processing Bundle and Business Intelligence Bundle) and three new offerings (Gold Red Brick Analytic Bundle for Enterprises, Gold Red Brick Analytic Bundle for Small and Medium Businesses and Gold Transaction Processing Bundle for Small and Medium Businesses).

These offerings allow the customer to purchase licenses to cover the entire business need, even if the exact mix of Informix and IBM database licenses is either not known at this time or will change over time.

For details on all the offerings, please refer to the "More News and Newsletters" link and then under "Announcement Letters" on the http://www.ibm.com web site.

Gold bundles being announced are as follows:

Updates to Existing Gold Bundles:

• IBM Data Management Gold Transaction Processing Bundle - ENTERPRISE
• IBM Data Management Gold Business Intelligence Bundle - ENTERPRISE

New Informix Product Offerings:

• IBM Data Management Gold Transaction Processing Bundle for SMB
• IBM Data Management Gold Red Brick Analytic Bundle for Enterprises
• IBM Data Management Gold Red Brick Analytic Bundle for SMB

Announced on 17 Dec. 2002

Schedule for Delivery

• Updated bundles: 21 Jan. 2003
• New bundles: 7 Feb. 2003

January User Group Meetings: Wash. DC, Utah & So. Cal.

The following user group meetings are scheduled for January 2003:

For more information on these and other upcoming events, please visit http://www.iiug.org/calendar/.

Announcing IBM Software Symposium, Munich, Germany, 19-23 May, 2003

The IBM Software Symposium 2003 has now been formally announced. This event targets mostly IBM Software users located in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The text of the announcement follows:

"Following on from the success of the IBM Software Symposium 2002, you can't afford to miss the second Software Symposium, to be held in Munich, Germany, from 19-23 May 2003."

"It's your chance to get in-depth technical education across the complete spectrum of IBM Software, including Data Management, Lotus, Tivoli, and WebSphere Software. Software Symposium 2003 consists of five days of keynote addresses, technical presentations, approved certifications, "birds-of-a- feather" sessions and live demonstrations from IBM's top product management and development staff, as well as a number of informal evening networking events."

For additional information, please visit http://www.ibm.com/events/symposium20index.php

Informix Evaluate Migrates to New URL

The Informix Evaluate site located at www.informix.com/evaluate moved to its new home on ibm.com under Trials and Betas. IBM Informix product downloads can now be accessed from any Informix product page by selecting Download from the left hand navigation linking you to the Informix Trials and Beta's area.

We ask that you please take a moment to update your bookmark to the following URL: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/informix/evaluate.html.

Useful Links

Closing and Credits

The International Informix Users Group (IIUG) is an organization designed to enhance communications between IBM and its worldwide user community. IIUG's membership database now exceeds 16,000 entries 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 Jean Georges Perrin, IIUG Board of Directors, and Fred Hubbard, IIUG Managing Director
For comments, please send an email to ug@iiug.org.