Please take note of what I was replying to. I was saying in retrospect that the price the original poster said was a good buy actually was not, and for prediictable reasons. Also, I made a mistake and said my technical analysis gave me "sell" signals when the stock reached 20.5. I meant to say the indicators gave my *buy* signals. Long day for me I guess. :)
The US server from all that I have heard offers the integration of relational database technology with object oriented database technology. I will give some insight here as to what motivates managers to purchase what is considered "new technology", particularily at the *expensive* price of $3,500 a head. The "new" technology has to provide real and provable benefits on the application level. In facilitating application development in this way, it has to allow the developement of applications that will impact the bottom line of the company. Also the new technology has to make this possible where implementing the same with the older technology is not practical or significantly more costly. I am sure you are already aware of this as a past salesman of Informix database software. For example, at a previous employer, this database software by itself would of cost the compay 350 * 3,500 = 1.2 million dollars! This is more than they spent for their two large minicomputer CPUs with associated software This would be a hard sell to the large book distributor with 100 million dollars in annual revenues.
Keep in mind three things. One is that the purchase of this technology could mean, besides the substantial up front investment, a significant reworking of applications to take advantage of this technology along with an associated learning curve by the programmers and database manager. Second, object oriented technology in the past has been a weak seller because this iin itself doen not provide evidence to management of its benefit in real and concrete terms. It makes management of an enterprise database more workable for instance, but this in itself is not a reason management would consider purchasing US. Third, the functionality that Informix has advertised as benefits to US, like the incorporation of multimedia and graphics into database related applications, has already been realizable and implemented through use of existing database technology. So the US is not offering anything new *yet* to a potential customer that the company could not do itself with their existing database system.
Object orientation allow certain things to be done more easily, but it does not provide "new and yet to be realized" capabilities in the development of applications. It is not the "holy grail" that everyone made out of object oriented software development for example. I do realize that object oriented compilers are different from object oriented databases. However, I am using this as a present day example.
Matter of fact, most companies actually are not developing object oriented applications, even the ones who think they are. They are using the tools that the object oriented compiler provides to facilitate a form of data encapsulization. This can be done with 3rd generation compilers like "C" fairly easily. Object orientation software development is more of a way of thinking and its associated methodology. Object oriented tools facilitate the development of object oriented based designs of software. However, it is surprising how many companies have not picked up on this distinction. Withoput this distonction, the benefits of using OO compiers will be limited, or even significantly more costly than writing the app iwith a 3rd generation compiler.
In my opinion, until Informix can demonstrate real benefits in terms that managers of companies can understand, companies will not be waiting in line to purchase this expensive database software. This can be done through applications developed successfully by a showcase of customer references for example,. Also, having other companies sign up and develop related software tools like datablades (??) and applications is important but meaningless as far as it concerns realized sales of the database software to customers. This after all is the goal of Informix in developing this database software. Finally, as you pointed out, the very important development of 3rd party applications and datablades will take time before this effort can facilitate the sales of US.
By the way, it will not hurt Oracle that they are at least a half year behind in developing a simular product. Matter of fact, I predict many companies will wait for Oracle to come up with a finished working product that is being used by businesses before this new technology and its associated up fron cost will be accepted by the marketplace.
I do welcome feedback and appreciate the feedback you have given me. As you can tell, I certainly can be verbose! |
