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

To: MJ who wrote (9001)	1/27/1998 5:22:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14631

>>>Also, for Informix to focus on this market would reduce margins and play straight into Microsoft's hands. Informix's focus is to partner with the web developers- focus on database strength.<<< I'm not sure that's right. I think in DB they will get killed on price if they don't come down, a year or two out. By that time it will be too late. And Oracle is doing fine with a consulting component. Meanwhile, what is Informix's hook for getting their DB into shops? They could work alongside their current partners in this, more than competing. Just take in the installation and configuration dollars and let the VAR have the app programming dollars, for instance. Sell on-site service to mack that installation up, etc. Actually, I would buy a couple of their larger consulting partners and become completely catholic about DB choice at the client site and who they work with and what their role is. A lot of people would take them on just because of their size, name, and the established competence of the outfits they acquired. Which they could do relatively cheaply. >>>I guess a lot of sites will simply upgrade existing in-house systems.<<< Most outfits here want a physical separation between the public systems and the in-house systems. Both paranoia and load issues. >>>For others, so far, a small database is adequate for the work-load. Will these systems scale when the big loads hit? There are still a hellava lot of very slow sites around.<<< Normally, over here we are using products like Cold Fusion and Java and others that allow you to change DBs underneath without disturbing the rest of the system. Since you can change DBs and write portable code a layer up, you don't care as much about the scalability of a particular system. But most of them will have capacity way over their needs if they are running a simple catalog anyway, even with Paradox. Most of the speed problems are related to line and modem speed, and too-extensive graphics. I know Informix got a lot of praise for that 'focus on the DB' message. And that is the right thing for 1997-1998. But they had better have a new trick for 1998-1999. Things are changing very rapidly, and they are not going to make it, nor would anyone else in the business, with just one bullet in the gun. Not under the kind of price pressure that is coming up in DB next year. IMHO, Chaz