Coinciding with horrendous third quarter results (see financial section), Informix Software Inc has decided to concentrate on its strongest business areas, a move that looks to be a desperate attempt to salvage something from a pretty leaky ship. Informix will now focus on high-performance online transaction processing, data warehousing, web-content management and the distributed enterprise. The company described the slimming down of its business as product simplification. It claimed the changes were put into effect to better reflect its database sever line and make it easier for customers to understand. Informix’s executive director of server marketing, Erin Kinikin promises the company will not get rid of any of its existing products, but it has put the Universal Server that formed the core of its product offering into the wings, and will focus instead on its older Dynamic Server line and the Dynamic Scalable Architecture. Universal Server was based on technology Informix acquired along with Illustra last year (CI No 2,820), and was supposed to offer its customers support for extended data types. Kinikin said that while its customers had recognized the strength in its technology, that technology had been represented in the wrong manner. A common application programming interface has also been announced, to enable customers to write applications once for all Informix software configurations. The DataBlade plug-in modules that used to be sold as part of the Universal Server have been unbundled, and prices on its advanced data warehousing products have been cut. The company claims it wants to protect the investment of its customers, and sees a unified product line as the key to achieving that.
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