IIUG Insider (Issue #16)
13 December 2002
Other Issues
Highlights: Don Top Interviewed, Mohan Natraj Profiled, www.ibm.com/informix
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:
- Jerry Hamilton, IIUG President, Interviews Don Top,
IBM D.M.S.
- Profiling Mohan Natraj, IIUG Board Member
- IDS 9.4 Preview for IBM Informix Partners
- IIUG's Membership Highlights
- IBM Announces Intent to Acquire Rational
- IDZ: A Data Structure for Storing Multilevel Objects
with Varying Attributes
- Errata: Server Studio JE ONLY for IDS
- Sunset for www.informix.com... Now www.ibm.com/informix
- IBM Informix SE 7.25 Download Updated
- Useful Links
- Closing and Credits
Jerry Hamilton, IIUG President, Interviews Don
Top, IBM D.M.S.
Jerry Hamilton, President of the International Informix Users Group
and Senior Manager of Database Administration at Fleischman-Hillard,
one of the world's largest PR firms, recently had the opportunity to
interview Don Top, Informix Customer Advocacy Executive for IBM Corporation.
The topic: IBM's roadmap for the Informix product line.
A few hand-picked quotes from Don's responses follow:
"I looked around for other ways to help ensure the success of
the acquisition and it became clear that although we had operationalized
all of the functions to keep the Informix business going, there was
no one person responsible for ensuring the prevailing issues confronting
the Informix customer and partner base got addressed. In my current
role, that is my responsibility and I've been enjoying the exposure
it gives me to the vast set of loyal believers in Informix."
On the greatest challenges to the Informix installed base's loyalty...
"The first challenge was communicating the long term commitment
IBM has to the Informix product line..."
"The second challenge was to counter the fear that IBM would force
all the Informix customers to migrate to DB2..."
"The third challenge has to be in retaining the Informix partner
base..."
"The current challenge is in laying out the convergence strategy
in a way that demonstrates how the combined DB2 and Informix technology
will create a next generation product to which not only Informix and
DB2 customers will want to upgrade, but also to which Oracle and Microsoft
customers will want to migrate."
he entire interview is available at http://www.IIUG.org
and at http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/informix/pubs/loyalty.html.
We encourage all our members to read it and promote it to their peers
and superiors.
Profiling Mohan Natraj, IIUG Board Member
Mohan Natraj is a very special individual on the IIUG Board of Directors.
His spot on the Board is the only one that isn't subject to membership
election. Find out more about this and other aspects of Mohan's life
and interests by reading his entire profile:
Q: How do you use Informix in your "real" job (DBA, Consultant,
Developer, etc.)?
A: I am the Brand Marketing Manager for Informix Extended Parallel Server
and Red Brick Warehouse Server. Therefore, I am involved on a daily
basis in the strategy and management of the two programs.
Q: How long have you been using Informix products?
A. I have been working with Informix products for about 5 years now.
Q: What is your role on the IIUG Board?
A: I am the IBM Advocate on the IIUG Board, nominated by IBM.
Q: Why did you volunteer to be on the Board?
A: I volunteered to be an IBM advocate to gain insight into the Informix
user community, to become the voice for IIUG within IBM and enable the
proper communication of IBM messages to the broader and very strategic
Informix user community.
Q: What do you want to accomplish this year on the Board?
A: I want to become better versed in the workings of the Board and sponsor
the rejuvenation of some of the US West Coast LUGs (local user groups),
start the
process for creating new user groups for U2 and Red Brick and generally
stay out of trouble.
Q: Where are you from?
A: Originally from India, but now a happy resident of the beautiful
city of roses, Portland, Oregon.
Q: Can you tell us about your family and hobbies outside of the IIUG?
A: I have been married to Leslie for 11 years. She is a home maker/wonderful
interior decorator, and we have a beautiful (all parents think their
child is the most beautiful - of course mine actually is) eight year
old daughter, Natasha. Natasha is a 3rd grader and is an avid theatre
enthusiast, like her mother, and is a pre-team gymnast at the Oregon
Gymnastics Academy. We ski as a family in the winter and hike/roller
blade in the summer. Natasha reads a lot, as do I and my wife is an
arts and crafts buff.
See Mohan 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.
IDS 9.4 Preview for IBM Informix Partners
Attention all IBM Informix partners: the replay information for IBM's
recent IDS 9.4 Preview webcast event is now available. We encourage
all who were not able to participate live to take advantage of the deferred
playback.
IBM's notice is as follows:
-o-
IDS 9.4 Business Partner Preview Webcast - REPLAY
If you are an IBM Informix Business Partner currently using IDS 7.x
or 9.x in your application, we encourage you to listen to the IBM IDS
development team review the relevant features of the upcoming release
of IDS 9.4. Also hear how to get access to Informix products and other
IBM software for development, evaluation, testing and certifying purposes
through PartnerWorld as well as upcoming events you won't want to miss.
IBM Informix Business Partners can access the details to this webcast
replay in one of the following ways:
If you would like to hear about IDS 9.4 but are not a member of PartnerWorld
for Developers or PartnerWorld for Software, you can join online:
Join PartnerWorld for Developers by selecting your geographical location:
Join PartnerWorld for Software at http://www.ibm.com/partnerworld/software.
Click "Steps to apply for membership". Select "Basic
Application for PartnerWorld for Software" when creating a PartnerWorld
for Software profile. Under "Informix Information", please
include note "Informix" in the space provided for the Informix
identifier.
-o-
IIUG webcasts and other IBM events are available for replay at the
IIUG Webcast Corner: http://www.iiug.org/news/webcasts.html.
IIUG's Membership Highlights
Even after a major cleanup, which reclassified all members whose e-mail
addresses were bouncing, our "active" membership is 21% larger
than it was at the end of February 2002! This is exciting, because it
means that IIUG continues to become increasingly stronger and more representative
of the Informix community worldwide.
Other insightful statistics are:
- 53% of our active members are located in the United States.
- The top 10 countries by member quantity after the US - in descending
order are: United Kingdom, Germany, India, Canada, Mexico, Australia,
Spain, Argentina, Belgium and China.
- Over 2250 members have opted not to receive the IIUG Insider by
e-mail. If you are one of them, please reconsider your decision and
change your subscription in the IIUG Member Area using the link provided
at the end of this issue.
- In the US, the top five membership growth states - in descending
order - are: Texas, Illinois, Missouri, New York and Colorado. Interestingly,
there are strong local user groups in all of them!
IBM Announces Intent to Acquire Rational
On the 6th of December, IBM announced its intent to purchase Rational
Software. The story appeared at http://story.news.yahoo.com on the day of the announcement.
IBM also has a full page dedicated to it, including a webcast for investors
at http://www.ibm.com/investor/events/ir1202/#.
Factoids:
- A US$2.1B cash transaction.
- Business is strongly focused on government and the small and mid-size
enterprise.
- Characterized as a leader in software development tools.
- In business for over 20 years.
- Revenue around US$600M/year.
- Rational to become the fifth "brand" under IBM Software
Group.
Rational's web site echoes the story at http://www.rational.com.
You can read about one of Rational's success stories, IBM Informix Dynamic
Server user Choice Hotels, at: http://programs.rational.com/success/.
If you are currently using Rational products, send us your thoughts
on this acquisition to enews@iiug.org.
IDZ: A Data Structure for Storing Multilevel Objects
with Varying Attributes
IBM's Informix Developer Zone (IDZ) has recently published a brand
new Informix-based article titled "A Successful Implementation
of a Data Structure for
Storing Multilevel Objects with Varying Attributes".
It was contributed by Serg V. Mescheryakov, Ph.D., who works for the
Computer Science Department at the St. Petersburg State Polytechnical
University, St. Petersburg, Russia.
The article's introduction:
"The object-oriented (O-O) approach to programming was a revolutionary
approach developed in the 1980s [3]. In the 1990s, integration with
an O-O architecture became an important area of research and development
for relational database management systems (DBMSs) [1,7]. In 1996, Informix
delivered Informix Universal Server as its object-relational (O-R) database.
Of course, the traditional relational model is still an important and
vital model. Nevertheless, there are a growing number of problems that
are far from being properly solved by means of relational or object-relational
DBMSs."
"In this article, I will briefly describe how some problems are
not ideally solved by relational or object relational features. I will
then describe a data structure called an Objects Tree that can help
overcome these limitations."
For the complete posting, please visit http://www.ibm.com.
Errata: Server Studio JE ONLY for IDS
ENews erroneously reported in the IIUG
Insider, issue #13, of 01 November 2002 that AGS' Server Studio
JE 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."
The text should have stated that AGS' Server Studio JE ships only with
IBM Informix Dynamic Server, and is part of the IDS Server bundle.
This is a reminder that IBM will stop re-directing www.informix.com
automatically to the newer product family home page on January 1st,
2003.
Please bookmark www.ibm.com/informix.
IBM Informix SE 7.25 Download Updated
The IBM Informix SE 7.25 free software download for IIUG members has
been updated and is now available from within the Member Area. Please
use the personalized link provided at the end of this issue.
This update corrects several problems encountered in the past few months.
We encourage all members who downloaded it earlier, to download again
and reinstall.
Useful Links
The International Informix Users Group (IIUG) is an organization designed
to enhance communications between IBM and its worldwide user community.
IIUG now exceeds 16,000 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.
