It seems that when we first asked an IBM spokesperson how many Informix users there are today, they told us instead how many members there are in the International Informix Users Group: around 20,000.
IBM’s director of data services, Bernie Spang, cleared up the confusion saying that, We are very comfortable saying that we have well over 100,000 customers. He added though that that figure includes customers with which IBM has a direct relationship, as well as the customers of its Informix business partners (of which there are many hundred).
As for how many individuals actually use Informix, that number runs into the millions, Spang said, because it includes vast numbers of users such as users of credit cards, checking accounts, communication systems and even IBM’s own global staff badge entry system. Many systems such as these are built on top of Informix, making users of such systems Informix users, though they may never realize it.
Spang said that most customers have stayed loyal to Informix since its acquisition and that the user community has actually grown. We have had some customers migrate from the competition to Informix, and yes some have also gone the other way, he added.
Meanwhile, Stuart Litel, president of the International Informix Users Group, said that, From every indication I have seen and know, the size of the Informix community is now larger than it was prior to the 2001 IBM acquisition…this is evident in both members of the IIUG and attendance at IIUG sponsored events around the world as well as the IIUG web site for the user group, that now receives a record number of hits almost monthly, to over 1.1 million hits a month up from one million hits a month just a year ago, and less than 400,000 hits a month back in 2001.
Litel said that the membership of the International Informix Users Group has grown to double the size it was back in 2001 at the time of the acquisition by IBM.
Our View
The basis of our initial story was a question to an IBM spokesperson after the firm announced a new version of Informix Dynamic Server: we asked, How many users of Informix are there worldwide today? The spokesperson told us, IBM has advised that there are more than 20,000 users of Informix worldwide today. Instead we are now told there are 20,000 in the International Informix User Group, over 100,000 Informix customers, and millions of users.
In our previous story we also questioned how many, if any, Informix users had migrated to IBM DB2. Spang said that he could not offer any figures on that, nor would he reveal any statistics on the size of its DB2 customer base. All I can say is that both customer bases are large, significant, and growing; they’re growing ahead of the market growth and have been for several quarters, he said.
