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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:

  1. Jerry Hamilton, IIUG President, Interviews Don Top, IBM D.M.S.
  2. Profiling Mohan Natraj, IIUG Board Member
  3. IDS 9.4 Preview for IBM Informix Partners
  4. IIUG's Membership Highlights
  5. IBM Announces Intent to Acquire Rational
  6. IDZ: A Data Structure for Storing Multilevel Objects with Varying Attributes
  7. Errata: Server Studio JE ONLY for IDS
  8. Sunset for www.informix.com... Now www.ibm.com/informix
  9. IBM Informix SE 7.25 Download Updated
  10. Useful Links
  11. 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.


Sunset for www.informix.com... Now www.ibm.com/informix

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

IBM Informix Homepage: http://www.ibm.com/informix/
IIUG Software Repository: http://www.iiug.org/software/
Informix Answers Online: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/informix/pubs/library/
Informix Product Family News: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/informix/news/
Informix Today - Subscription & Archive: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/informix/informixtoday/
IBM Informix Support Site: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/informix/support
Informix Developer Zone: http://www7b.boulder.ibm.com/dmdd/zones/informix/
Data Management Certification Program: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2/skills/cert.html
Informix Page Within IBM PartnerWorld for Developers: http://www.developer.ibm.com/data/informindex.php
Recent Data Management Product Announcements: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/launch/
Upcoming IBM Conferences Worldwide: http://www.ibm.com/services/learning/conf/
Bad Press on Nasty Informix Competitors: http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/news/competitors.html

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 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.

Sources: IIUG Board of Directors
Editors: David Smith, IIUG Board of Directors
Jean Georges Perrin, IIUG Board of Directors
Fred Hubbard, IIUG Managing Director, and
Paul Etcheverry, IIUG Editor
For comments, please send an email to UG@IIUG.org.