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Technology Stocks : IFMX - Investment Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J Bertrand who wrote (8761)	1/14/1998 8:04:00 PM
From: Esvida	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14631

There is another possibility (now I debating myself) . Let's say that Microsoft really starts eating up market share. Isn't is possible for Informix to thrive in certain niches with only a small part of the overall market share? If the pie continues to grow, then why can't Informix survive and thrive even with the ever looming Microsoft in the shadows? I don't think there will ever be a day when one company sells and controls 100% of an industry. Can anyone think of a product where this has happened? I really can't. Jeff, IMO, there is a fundamental difference between the software industry and any other industry: The marginal cost declines indefinitely. There is a diminishing point of return in terms of volume for manufacturers other than software. That is why the antitrust case against MSFT is a big challenge for the DOJ. We don't have anything like it until now exept for music and movie, but these have a taste constraint. -Al

To: J Bertrand who wrote (8761)	1/15/1998 12:26:00 AM
From: Joe Erickson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14631

<<If the pie continues to grow, then why can't Informix survive and thrive even with the ever looming Microsoft in the shadows?>> IMO the most likely scenario is that MS SQL Server 7 does to Informix what Windows NT Server did to Novell. It wasn't that long ago that similar arguments were made about NT vs Netware (NT wasn't good enough). Sybase and Oracle are also going to have a tough time, but at least they have other strengths. Of course, Novell had the advantage of about a billion dollars in the bank as I remember it. And that's not the only trouble for SYBS/IFMX/ORCL. IBM is aggressively going after Unix RDBMS market share. Whatever growth occurs in the RDBMS market over the next few years will likely be shared by Microsoft and IBM. My guess is that this trend already started in 1997. Informix will probably survive, but it's hard to make a case for Informix thriving. The same is also probably true about Sybase and maybe even Oracle. Hopefully Informix and Sybase will run up at least one more time in the next year or two and allow long time holders (including myself) to dump our shares. Joe