IIUG Insider (Issue #27)
16 May 2003
Other Issues
Highlights: Referral Drive, Informix Logo Lives in Russia, 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.
Contents:
- IIUG Referral Drive Brings over 100 New Members to IIUG
- The Informix Logo Lives On
- European Conference Update
- Free "Rational Development Powerpack"
- Developer Domain: New Office Connect Article
- DB2 Information Management Software Today
- IBM Training and Certification News
- IBM Webcast: Business Integration and the Role of Data Management
- Useful Links
- Closing and Credits
IIUG Referral Drive Brings over 100 New Members to IIUG
Eric Chen and Bo Li continue to lead by having referred more new members to IIUG than anyone else. Now over 140 individuals have joined IIUG via the Referral Drive which kicked off just two weeks ago.
Keep it coming. The more of us in IIUG, the stronger we are!
For more information, please visit http://www.iiug.org/referral/.
The Informix Logo Lives On
By Jean Georges Perrin, IIUG Board and ENews Editor
Surely most of you remember the Informix web site with the Informix logo, before it turned a little blue...
Nowadays, it is pretty hard to find this logo, except on some fan web sites. However, there is still a company that uses it and is proud of that. You will find them at http://www.informix.ru. Of course, it is pretty hard to read if you do not understand Russian or even if your browser does not support Cyrillic (Tip: on Internet Explorer, go View -> Encoding -> (More->) Cyrillic Windows. On Netscape, go View -> Character Coding -> Auto-Detect -> Russian).
What Happened?
Svetlana Gracheva tells us: "We started as the Russian Informix office in 1995 and provided all Informix activities in Russia/CIS region. When IBM acquired Informix we did not become IBM. Instead we became their business partner with a right to use the name "Informix-Russia/CIS".
Svetlana adds: "We provide technical support, consulting, and development for Informix customers in our region. Among them, the Central Bank of Russia, AlfaBank, Vimpelcom (Beeline), Avtovaz and many-many others. We have a very strong professional team, which was grown inside Informix when we were Informix employees".
At the beginning of March, Informix-Russia/CIS organized a user group event. Irina Zabrovskaya told us that about 120 people attended this event. She added: "we are planning to invite all the members to a joint event with IBM called Infobahn in June". To be more precise, this Infobahn will be held on June 19th, in Moscow. They expect 200 people to be there. We wish them all good luck!
Their user group, called "IBM Data Management User Group (IDUG) Russia/CIS", has a web site: http://www.idug.ru. You can contact also Irina Zabrovskaya for more information.
CIS Growth
IIUG's Russian members grew by an impressing 27% over the last 12 months. But some smaller republics did even better! Ukraine has over 250% increase, Uzbekistan did not exist before, Armenia is about 500%, Azerbaijan doubled, Belarus, Latvia and Estonia almost doubled, Georgia and Lithuania increased slightly, Kazakhstan if four times what it used to be, Moldova almost tripled.
Keep the good work going and do not forget about our referral drive (http://www.iiug.org/referral/)!
Message to LUG Leaders
The Insider team would like to get news from you in order to have similar articles for different geographies about different events, etc. The Informix community is living and we sure want to show it.
European Conference Update
Next week, IBM will hold the 2003 Software Symposium in Munich from 19th to 23rd May 2003. Featuring an opening address from former US ambassador Henry Kissinger, the Symposium has more than 300 sessions featuring IBM's DB2 Information Management (including the Informix product family), Lotus, Tivoli, WebSphere, and Rational Software.
The IIUG has negotiated a 5% registration discount for the Symposium for its members. IIUG will have a presence at the Solution Showcase - the exhibition associated with the event.
Please visit http://www.iiug.org/calendar/conferenindex.php#sym for details of the Symposium and other IBM events at which the IIUG will be spreading the word about Informix.
On related news, IIUG regrets to inform its membership that the 2003 IBM Data Management Technical Conference scheduled for 23-27 June in Hamburg, Germany, will not include UNIX/Linux/Windows database content. This affects all Informix and U2 conference sessions previously planned, which have been discarded due to a recent decision by IBM Learning Services, the conference organizer.
IIUG promoted the event via the IIUG Insider issue of 18 April (http://www.iiug.org/news/insider/insider_18apr03.html#4) encouraging attendance. We apologize for any inconveniences caused due to this change in conference emphasis and hope to see you either at Munich's IBM Software Symposium (http://www.ibm.com/events/symposium20index.php) or at the Las Vegas IBM Data Management Technical Conference (http://www.ibm.com/services/learning/conf/us/dm/).
Free "Rational Development Powerpack"
IBM announced a promotion to "Build on your existing Java skills with Rational tools". For more information, please visit http://www.click-one.net/mk/get/rational_gen_dev?ppsrc=ibm_weekly_2.
IBM completed its acquisition of Rational Software earlier this year. Steve Mills, IBM senior vice president and group executive, IBM Software Group was quoted in the official news release as saying: "Rational's complete, open software development platform can improve the speed, quality and predictability of software projects. It's a perfect complement to our existing four brands - WebSphere, DB2, Lotus and Tivoli."
For more information on IBM's Rational software, please visit http://www.rational.com/index.jsp?SMSESSION=NO.
Developer Domain: New Office Connect Article
A new article has published on the Informix Developer Domain, titled "Client-side Information Integration Using Office Connect". IBM's abstract for it follows:
Need a way to seamlessly transfer information between an Excel spreadsheet and a relational data source like IBM Informix or DB2 UDB? IBM Office Connect provides a simple GUI-based solution to this basic problem. Read this article to find out more:
http://www7b.software.ibm.com/dmdd/library/techarticle/0305singh/0305singh.html.
DB2 Information Management Software Today
IBM has launched a new monthly newsletter about all DB2 Information Management Software offerings called "DB2 Information Management Software Today". Its first issue published last week and provides a broader range of information on the entire suite of DB2 Information Management Software solutions, including , Informix, U2, DB2 Universal Database, and DB2 Content Manager.
To subscribe to and read this new publication, please visit http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2infonews/.
IBM Training and Certification News
The following announcements were provided by IBM's Nicole Silvia, of DB2 Information Management Skills Opportunity Development and Awareness.
Becoming IBM certified will validate your skills, and give you a competitive advantage in the job market. Begin your certification experience by taking one of our comprehensive exams such as exam 660-612: System Administration for IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 9. For all of the IBM Informix exams currently available, please visit http://www.ibm.com/certify/certs/ix_index.shtml
Get certified for free at the Data Management Technical Conference Take advantage of the free IBM Informix professional certification testing offered at DMTC October 27-31, 2003 in Las Vegas, NV. Become IBM Informix certified to validate your skills, and give you a competitive advantage in the job market. For more information or to register please visit: http://www.ibm.com/services/learning/conf/us/dm/certification.html
Become an IBM Informix Dynamic Server Performance Tuning Expert! Are you an experienced IBM IDS administrator that has taken all the training courses in your area of expertise? We would like to present you with a new challenge, custom deigned for professionals like you, the IBM Informix Masters Series. For a limited time, Masters Series Workshop, IBM Informix Dynamic Server Advanced Performance Tuning (MW-729), normally only available in Denver, CO, is now available in three key locations, Atlanta, GA, Washington D.C. area and in Denver, CO. For more information on this exciting opportunity or to enroll, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/services/learning/us/catalog/informix/all.html#Masters
IBM Webcast: Business Integration and the Role of Data Management
IBM Insight Exchange is a business partner initiative that helps current and prospective business partners increase business acumen in the areas of technology, industry trends, and business effectiveness.
The next event in IBM Insight Exchange.s technology track is a webcast presentation titled "Business Integration and the Role of Data Management". Join Dr. Nelson Mattos, IBM Distinguished Engineer and Director of Information Integration, who is responsible for establishing IBM.s leadership in the emerging information integration market. Dr. Mattos will describe IBM.s vision for an information integration infrastructure that will support the new composite applications of the future, helping to manage integration across people, processes, application, and data.
In response to your input, we have created a new page on the IIUG web site
containing all the links we used to include. Please find it at:
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 17,000
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.
