Hi Joel,
Typical of French culture is to listen when it makes sense!
BTW, you didn't listen either: I've never claimed that Godiva
was the best chocolate...But I know that, as a US-owned brand,
it's quite popular in the US.
Anyway, here's some good news:
Monday September 30 8:14 AM EDT
Informix Ships INFORMIX-Universal Server Developer Release on
Schedule
MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 30, 1996--Informix Software, Inc., (NADSAQ:IFMX) the leader in
innovative database technology, today announced it is shipping an INFORMIX(R)-Universal Server developers' release to
customers and partners.
This developer release will allow customers and partners to develop and test a range of applications and DataBlade(R)
modules running against INFORMIX-Universal Server.
INFORMIX-Universal Server is the company's extensible relational database management system designed to manage all
information assets, including numbers, images, maps, sound, video, Web pages, text as well as any other user-defined or rich
data types, in a single integrated database.
"Informix has met another milestone in the delivery of INFORMIX-Universal Server," said Malcolm Colton, the company's
director of product marketing. "Getting INFORMIX-Universal Server code out to customers and partners for testing is an
important step for Informix. One of our goals is to get a broad range of customer applications and DataBlade modules tested
and available for use with the INFORMIX-Universal Server when we ship the product in December of this year."
"Tests have shown that current Informix-based applications with alphanumeric data will have equivalent performance on the
Universal Server," said Tim Shetler, vice president of product management, Informix. "More importantly, customers will now
be able to add rich content and manage these applications orders of magnitude faster than traditional relational databases can
handle today."
Forrester Research, a leading industry market research firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts stated, "By leveraging its
highly componentized Dynamic Scalable Architecture (DSA), Informix has been able to integrate Illustra and its DataBlade
technology into its Universal Server offering ahead of schedule. In addition, a development kit that lets ISVs and corporate
programmers create DataBlades also shipped on time this month. Forrester believes the firm will capture share in the evolving
server database market over the next 24 months as many users recast their database buying criteria around `complex content
(1)'."
Informix is delivering INFORMIX-Universal Server code to key customers and DataBlade development partners who have
expertise in a variety of areas, including document management, multimedia, Web/intranet, mapping and spatial, financial
services and data warehousing applications. For example, MapInfo Corporation, the leader in business mapping software, will
create an Address DataBlade module for INFORMIX-Universal Server.
"Most organizations already store some amount of address information in their databases," said Elizabeth Ireland, vice
president of marketing, at MapInfo. "With the Address DataBlade module, customers can assign geographic coordinates to
huge volumes of addressing information, display this data in the form of maps, and make business decisions in a more intuitive,
effective way. An example is the ability to quickly identify all potential customers within 20 miles of your store location, and
determine which customers to target with a direct mail or advertising campaign."
Another recipient of INFORMIX-Universal Server code is Open Market, Inc., a leading provider of Internet commerce
software. Open Market's OM-SecureLink(TM) technology will be incorporated into an Internet Commerce(IC) DataBlade
module.
"The IC DataBlade will provide businesses with a powerful tool to conduct secure database-driven electronic commerce,"
said Bob Weinberger, vice president of marketing at Open Market. "The IC DataBlade module dynamically generates "digital
offers" from product information contained in an INFORMIX-Universal Server. Digital offers provide the secure link between
Web content and OM-Transact, Open Market's complete back office software product for Internet commerce. We believe
the transformation of Web sites into Web businesses is accelerated with the combination of our OM-SecureLink technology
and INFORMIX-Universal Server."
Virage, Inc., a leading provider of visual information retrieval technology, is another recipient of INFORMIX-Universal
Server code. Virage is migrating its Visual Information Retrieval (VIR) DataBlade module from Illustra Server to
INFORMIX-Universal Server. According to Tom Stuart, vice president of sales and marketing at Virage, "Customers are
demanding an easier way to manage their image assets - such as photos, camera-ready artwork, story-boards, and web
thumb-nails, along with all their other corporate data. The VIR DataBlade module will extend INFORMIX-Universal Server
with powerful, content-based image retrieval capabilities, providing customers an intuitive way to search for images."
Informix also announced a new version of the DataBlade Developers Kit, designed to make it easier for customers and
partners to develop DataBlade modules for the INFORMIX-Universal Server. Version 3.1 of the kit generates
INFORMIX-Universal Server code, and allows existing DataBlade modules written for the Illustra Server to be easily
modified to run on the INFORMIX-Universal Server.
The INFORMIX-Universal Server developer release runs on the SUN Solaris platform.
Gustave. |
