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To: Robert Graham who wrote (10787)	5/14/1998 1:21:00 AM
From: bob zagorin	Respond to of 14631

May 11, 1998, TechWeb News -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Informix Alive And Kicking By John T. Mulqueen Despite doomsayers who worry that the database market is saturated, Informix CEO Robert Finocchio believes that it is still a growth business, especially at the high end where he intends Informix Software Inc. to win. Finocchio said at a press luncheon last week in New York that Informix needs to do a better job of marketing than its deal-making, sale-clinching culture called for in the past; that it must do better with channel distribution, especially in persuading applications developers to port their products to Informix; and that it must make it is easier to develop data blades for its high-end object relational database management system (ORDBMS), the Universal server. But Finocchio said that even with the difficulties of using blades, Informix has more than 1,000 customers using the high-end system. Having the ORDBMS product is a competitive advantage for Informix, he said, and he predicted it will find a strong market as a Web server and electronic-commerce platform. Informix has hired an entirely new management team since Finocchio took over the troubled company nine months ago, including new financial, marketing and sales executives. Finocchio said that in addition to working with systems integrators such as Andersen Consulting, Electronic Data Systems Corp. and Perot Systems Corp., Informix also must step up its efforts to persuade other solutions providers to move their applications to Informix. Informix sells its database systems to packaged applications vendors, including The Baan Co., PeopleSoft Inc. and SAP AG, which resell Informix and other database products with their own. Informix does not compete against those vendors because it is hard to differentiate itself from their offerings, Finocchio said. Informix also has no intention of competing against Microsoft and SQL Server at the low end of the Windows NT market because of pricing issues. Microsoft could reduce the cost of SQL Server to zero by packaging it with NT, and "there is no strategy available to make a business" against that combination, he said. Where It Will Compete But at the end of the NT market-especially where customers have both NT and Unix servers- Informix can and will compete, according to Finocchio. NT now accounts for less than 10 percent of Informix's revenue, but he said there are plans to increase it. Informix surprised Wall Street at the end of 1997 by reporting a profit, which was not expected until much later this year, if at all. And the company recently reported its second profitable quarter. For the first three months of 1998, Informix said its revenue rose 12.1 percent to $167 million, compared with one year ago. Profits were $4.9 million, compared with a $144 million loss last year. Finocchio noted in the interview that the company has adopted much tougher, conservative financial reporting standards that will eliminate the "multiyear deals" that had been common practice before. The new practices basically mean that the vendor will write shorter-term contracts and recognize revenue from them when customers accept products. The old practices meant that Informix lost out on revenue that it would have received with shorter-term contracts that adhere more closely to actual pricing trends, Finocchio said. "We were leaving money on the table."