12/6/99 InformationWeek 38
1999 WL 21899887
InformationWeek
Copyright 1999 CMP Publications Inc.
Monday, December 6, 1999
764
Top Of The Week
Informix Makes E-Commerce Intelligence Push
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Vendor Continues Effort To Reinvent Itself Via Acquisition Of Ardent
Rick Whiting
Database vendor Informix Corp., in a bid to strengthen its E-commerce
business-intelligence offerings-not to mention its reputation-last week
moved to acquire Ardent Corp., a supplier of data integration software
for data warehouse and business-intelligence applications. The buyout,
valued at $880 million, is expected to be completed in the first quarter
of next year.
Informix isn't the only vendor targeting the E-intelligence
market-and the move to acquire Ardent doesn't necessarily give it a leg
up. Last month, Oracle and Microsoft unveiled their own initiatives to
provide business-intelligence capabilities for analyzing data generated
by E-commerce systems. This week, Informatica Corp. will unveil new
data integration software aimed at E-commerce analysis. Sagent
Technology Inc. is expected to make a similar announcement next week.
Success may be critical for Informix as it tries to reinvent itself
as a supplier of E-business infrastructure software. In 1997, the
vendor lost more than $350 million amid the departure of key managers
and developers. Since then, its share of the database market has
languished at less than 5%, dropping from 4.8% in 1997 to 4.4% in 1998,
according to Dataquest. In contrast, IBM had 32.3% market share in 1998,
Oracle 29.3%, and Microsoft 10.2%.
E-intelligence applications give companies the ability to collect and
analyze the huge volumes of data generated by their E-commerce systems.
Such capabilities are a missing ingredient in most E-business operations
today, says Wayne Eckerson, an analyst at Patricia Seybold Group.
Companies that leverage Web-site data are better able to acquire and
retain customers than are their competitors, Eckerson says.
Virtual college bookstore eCampus.com in Lexington, Ky., has $92
million in venture capital and is investing heavily in IT
infrastructure, according to CIO Jack Garvin. "We're interested in doing
more in this area," he says. But the company, which runs its business on
an Oracle8i database, is using custom-built tools to do it because
off-the-shelf products are not versatile enough to meet eCampus.com's
needs. It's not looking at Informix to bolster the mix.
To tap into the E-business market, Informix debuted its i.Sell
E-commerce application suite in April, and in August released its
Internet Foundation.2000 database, positioned as a platform for
E-business applications. In October, Informix acquired Cloudscape Inc.,
a developer of embedded database and data synchronization technology,
with the intention of offering Cloudscape's products as a platform for
developing and deploying distributed E-business applications.
The acquisition of Ardent and its market-leading DataStage suite of
data integration tools could give Informix a key component in its
E-business strategy. DataStage lets IS managers extract data from
multiple sources, such as databases and online transaction systems, and
load it into a data warehouse for analysis. The suite includes tools for
transforming data from one format to another and for managing metadata.
Informix sees DataStage as the crown jewel of the acquisition.
"Ardent has unique data integration technology in DataStage, which
transfers data from your E-commerce system to your business-intelligence
system in real time," says Informix president and CEO Jean-Ives
Dexmier.
Informix already resells DataStage as part of its Decision Frontier
suite. The vendor now plans to add DataStage's data quality management,
metadata management, and mainframe data connectivity and extraction
tools, which will give its users access to a wider range of data sources
when building and loading a data warehouse, says Patricia Lai,
business-intelligence marketing director at Informix. Dexmier says the
DataStage technology will also let Informix users analyze clickstream
data in real time and optimize Web-site personalization capabilities.
"It's a good move for Informix," says Mike Schiff, an analyst with
market- research firm Current Analysis. "I think it will increase their
credibility in the data warehouse space."
Data warehousing is not uppermost on the mind of Eric Weaver, chief
technology officer at InteliHealth Inc. in Blue Bell, Pa. But Weaver
says the capabilities offered by Ardent's technology will likely prove
useful in the future. "As we get more into personalization and
monitoring the traffic through our Web site, data warehousing will
become more important to us," he says. "So I think the Ardent
acquisition is good."
Whether the acquisition will prove successful for Informix, however,
will hinge on the vendor's ability to integrate Ardent's technology with
its own, says Giga Information Group analyst Terilyn Palanca. "Informix
doesn't have the best track record when it comes to integrating products
they buy," she says. The company's lengthy and clumsy effort at
combining the object-relational technology from its 1996 acquisition of
Illustra Information Technologies with its own database is seen as one
of the factors that sent the company into a financial tailspin.
One issue is the number of databases the Ardent acquisition brings to
Informix's already cluttered product line. As a result of its own
acquisitions, Ardent has the UniData and UniVerse relational database
and the O2 object-oriented database system. Informix has its flagship
relational database and the Cloudscape product, plus its Red Brick
server. "They've got too many databases right now," Schiff says.
"They've got to get their act together."
Giga Group's Palanca isn't convinced that the Ardent acquisition will
provide Informix with much of a competitive edge, given that the
companies already had a joint-marketing relationship. "It's not like
this brings any capabilities that customers couldn't get before," she
says, adding that Informix still lags behind Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft
in providing a comprehensive E-commerce/business-intelligence platform.
She also notes that Informix lacks an application server, which she
considers critical to any E-business offering.
The acquisition leaves some Ardent customers nervous. "I'm a little
concerned because Informix is not our database platform," says Willard
Thrash, data warehouse manager at the Hunt Corp., a Philadelphia supplier of office and presentation products. Hunt uses Microsoft's SQL
Server to power its data warehouse.
Dexmier insists DataStage won't become an Informix-only product. But
Informix has not revealed a strategy for integrating, packaging, and
supporting its various, disparate products. That has some observers
wondering whether this latest acquisition is Informix's best bid for
market leadership-or its last.
December 06, 1999
---- INDEX REFERENCES ----
COMPANY (TICKER): Informix Corp.; INFA; SGNT; Giga Information Group Inc.; Hunt Corp. (IFMX INFA SGNT GIGX H |
