Talk:Informix

Split this page into two

There is need to split this page into two. 1. Former Informix Corporation (and probably Ascential too). 2. Informix Product Line. Chirag (talk) 17:58, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree. The page as written doesn't even cover the topic named in the article. I propose two separate articles be made out of this.

The first article will be titled: "Informix Software" and will include all of the historical information on the company, and will end with the acquisition by IBM.

I note that all other large and/or significant computer companies are treated in this manner on Wikipedia. For instance the article on Tandem Computers is not titled "HP Tandem Computers", it is a simple article about a no-longer existing computer company. Same for the article about Compaq computers, it is not called "HP Compaq computers".

The second article could be called "IBM Informix" and deal with the current products offered under the Informix brand by IBM. It will be similar to the "IBM Websphere" article, which is also about a product line.

As the article now is titled one is expecting to find out something about IBM Informix, but instead 90% of the article is about a defunct company. The IBM connection only shows up at the end with some minimal discussion of current products.

Unless someone objects to this now I am going to split this into two, as suggested several years ago by Chirag. ZeroXero (talk) 17:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I have created the Informix Software page as described above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Informix_Software&rcid=496068581

I am now going to edit this page to accurately reflect the IBM Informix product family, in keeping with the title.

Since the article was rejected, and yet there needs to be one, I created a simpler stub: Informix Corporation. Hopefully (properly sourced) information can be added to it. --Kai Carver (talk) 00:16, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Comments

Comments originally placed inside the article body

(I don't believe Roger Sippl was ever an employee of Cromemco. Or, if he had been, that he produced the product while he was their employee. I believe he was a consultant hired by Cromemco to develop the report-writer package noted above. It was written in a dialect of BASIC that I created for Cromemco--also on a contract basis--that included a "KSAM" package and BASIC statements to do rudimentary operations--insert, retrieve, update, etc.--on the pseudo-database. I vaguely recall talking to a woman at Roger's office, so that was probably Laura King. The KSAM package--Keyed Sequential Access Method--was in turn produced by another small company, I believe from Oakland, California.  ::William F. Wilkinson)

(The claim that Informix's code originated with Ingres is puzzling and not readily substantiated. There is certainly no concrete evidence of that in any code, even in Informix 3.30 code, which dates back to 1985 and therefore would be closest to the claimed Ingres base. It is indisputable that Sybase was the base for MS SQL Server; it is not clear that Sybase was based on Ingres code either - though the Wikepedia page for Sybase also claims this. Ingres may have had some influence on Informix, but Ingres query processing was radically different from that used in Informix - using multiple processes rather than a single process, and using Quel rather than Informer, both of which are arguably better than SQL from the same period.)

(The claim of 1981 for the first release of Informix is early - the Ingres page claims it was 1984, which is probably more accurate than 1981. Another important product was C-ISAM - available separately. It was used as the storage manager for Informix (and still is used as the storage manager for Informix-SE), so it most likely pre-dates Informix. There was also a product called File-It!, complete with exclamation mark, that was essentially a cut-down, one-table at a time, version of Informix or Informix-SQL. This existed as an adjunct to ISQL 1.10 and 2.00; there is evidence that it also existed as an adjunct to Informix 3.30.)

Logo

I've replaced the animated logo with a non-animated version. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-01-28 00:16Z

Redbrick

Didn't Informix buy Redbrick (Data warehousing systems)? When IBM purchased Informix, they got Redbrick as well (you can still find Redbrick on the IBM pages).

Yes, Informix did buy Redbrick. It was in the period when Jean-Yves Dexmier was CEO. I was part of the integration team, the Redbrick headquarters was in Saratoga are of Silicon Valley. Redbrick went to IBM as part of the database business in the July 2001 acquisition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ZeroXero (talk • contribs) 21:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Literary Content

The section entitled "2005: The Final Chapter of the Informix Story" reads more like a newspaper article than an encyclopedia entry. The section gives some opinionated statements in a sensationalist fashion, and a lot of "shoulds" where a factual article should contain sentences worded in a more definition, factual manner.

The claim that IBM bought Informix at WalMart's suggestion doesn't ring true. While there is a footnote for it, the footnote doesn't include a quote, only an assertion.

Yes, Informix *did* buy Redbrick, which had been a independent company located in Los Gatos for about 10 years. The transaction closed in 2000 I think, under John Yves Dexmier, CEO.

No, Informix is not based on Ingres, but Illustra, was loosely based on Postgres both of which were projects of Dr. Michael Stonebreaker at UC Berkeley that went on to be spun out as companies.

This is a good article as far as it goes but doesn't really cover the last few years of the company. Informix had 3 CEOs after Phil, and their contributions are not really called out.

Legal History

As with the missing CEOs, there is no mention in this article of the intellectual property dispute between IBM and Informix that became moot when IBM purchased Informix. Factual information such as filing dates and a summary of pleadings would make a useful addition. A summary of the settlement terms, if any, would also be interesting. 207.193.132.159 (talk) 17:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC) druebenson

Licence

Can somebody confirm that the number of users in the current versions (IDS, 4GL, ESQL) are not technically limited? 193.220.137.2 (talk) 08:28, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Page needs scrubbed for appropriate sources, inappropriate tone, and to generally follow Wikipedia's quality standards

This page needs scrubbed for appropriate sources, inappropriate tone, and to generally follow Wikipedia's quality standards.

This entire page is riddled with uncited information, ambiguous statements, and information which is generally unreliable based on the Wikipedia quality standards. This article sounds like someone was trying to write a biography of the company. It is slanted toward the company in many respects. It appears as though other people agree as well.. Examples follow...

Primary authors, please respond. What action are you going to take?

Examples below:

1988: Innovative Software acquisition

In 1988, Informix purchased Innovative Software -- Show me a press release

, makers of a DOS and Unix-based office system called SmartWare and WingZ, an innovative spreadsheet program for the Apple Macintosh.

WingZ provided a highly graphical user interface, -- Quantify, what does highly mean? Sounds vague and ambiguous to me

supported very large spreadsheets, -- Quantify, what how large? Then cite where that info comes from. Possibly a users manual, company web page, etc.

and offered programming in a HyperCard-like language known as HyperScript.

The original release proved very successful, becoming the #2 spreadsheet, behind Microsoft Excel. -- Quit working up your product. Let the user decide if it is very successful. If it was indeed the #2 spreadsheet, then cite it! If not, get rid of it.

For a brief period, Wingz was successfully marketed into this niche. -- How long? A brief period can be 2 months, 5 years, or a decade for IBM.

However it suffered from a lack of development and marketing resources, possibly due to a general misunderstanding of the non-server software market. -- "possibly due" .. Let the reader make their own conclusions.

By the early 1990s WingZ had become uncompetitive, and Informix eventually sold it in 1995. -- Cite, how about a press release?

Informix also sold a license to Claris -- This sounds like proprietary information, and if not then cite where it came from

who combined it with a rather updated GUI as Claris Resolve -- What does "rather updated" mean? Rewrite between programming languages? Updated from Motif to Java?.. get specific or take it out.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Rahst12 (talk • contribs) 04:51, 22 February 2010

Awesome advert

Any idea who paid for it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.243.151.167 (talk) 10:24, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Without going as far as to claim it's paid content, I agree it definitely looks very uncritical. Marked as such. Thanks. The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 22:07, 7 March 2022 (UTC)