Following in the footsteps of rival giant Oracle Corp earlier this week, Informix Corp yesterday announced it would port its SE database to the Linux operating system. Speaking at the software giant’s annual Worldwide User Conference in Seattle, Steve Lambright, server product marketing manager said Informix had primarily made the move in response to huge user demand. It was the number one user request over the past year, he said, Linux has reached critical mass and now its ready for prime time enterprise computing. It’s what everyone’s calling out for. He said organizations had the right commercial infrastructure in place to make the transition to Linux and added that consultants, systems integrators and VARs (value added resellers) were all picking up Linux and running with it. But more than market readiness, he said that the technology had finally proven itself. People won’t just use technology unless there’s any value add to it, he said, we’ve seen this with the transition to the web. At first people were skeptical, now they’re using it for e-commerce. We believe Linux is in the same position as the web was three or four years ago; it’s reliable and proven technology. Now all we need is to move it to the enterprise and start developing applications. Linux is an operating system primarily used by developers. It’s available free and industry pundits attending the user conference argue that it’s much faster and more resilient than NT. By making its SE database, designed for small to medium-range applications, available on Linux, Informix says it is offering users the reliability of Unix and the price/performance of NT. The company will begin shipments of SE and ESQL/C (Embedded SQL, the development tool used to write applications in SE) on Linux as of yesterday but in a move that surprised analysts and press attendees alike, the company would not say when, or if, it would port its flagship database, Dynamic Server, to the operating system. Given that Informix has freely admitted it will not put any more development money into SE, it seems strange that it should choose to port its now age-old database to Linux and not its key product, Dynamic Server. Company executives denied Linux wasn’t mature enough for DS, but Diane Fraiman, Informix’s VP of worldwide corporate marketing did concede that the operating system was just learning what it takes to play in the enterprise market. She said this was the first step in the companies’ partnership. Linux hasn’t sold into the high-end market yet. We don’t expect our large DS installed base to suddenly go for Linux. It’s simply a chance for us to broaden our market opportunities, we don’t expect it to be a leading revenue generator. Lambright added that Informix now had an organization in place that’s trained on Linux and hinted that the company did plan to port other products to the operating system over time.
