Informix Software Inc wants to own the majority of the Microsoft Corp Windows NT database market and thinks it’s got the product strategy that will do it. It has announced a version of its Informix-SE mid-range relational database management system to NT’s Advanced Server system, planning on making it available at the same time as the Advanced Server goes on general release. The SE port is interesting in itself because Informix used Laurence Harbor, New Jersey-based Convergent Solutions Inc-owned company DataFocus Inc’s still-unreleased Unix-to-NT translator NuTcracker (CI No 2,189) to get the job done, an exercise Informix says produced better-than-expected results. More interesting perhaps are the four large financial accounts said to have been rounded up by systems integrator TRW Inc, Cleveland, which want to deploy some 7,000 to 10,000 NT clients off of Unix servers immediately. SE however is not Informix’ strategic NT system. That space is reserved for an unnamed product that Informix still has under development and refers to as PDQ, short for what it’s supposedly good at – no, not getting things out Pretty Damn’ Quick but Parallel Data Queries. PDQ code, part of a family of releases Informix has dubbed the Dynamic Server Architecture, is due to be frozen in July and be ready for beta test in September. At least that’s the schedule for the Unix version. A parallel development effort under a separate team is now under way for NT and the two aren’t quite in sync. However delivery of both species is set for the early part of next year after Informix trots out OnLine 6, the first of the Dynamic Server Architecture family and the company’s first attempt at multithreading and parallel capabilities, a completely different animal from SE. Informix is already giddy with delight at the benchmarks it’s getting from PDQ, claiming it performs at close to theoretical limits. To get both a PDQ Unix and a PDQ NT out the door Informix will have to master the art of doing multiple beta releases, a factor that in itself should hold NT back. The SE implementation buys Informix the luxury of time to experiment with NT as a server and allow its 3,000 value-added resellers to develop NT applications and learn the environment on a familiar, reliable and easy-to-use system.
