Re: informix market share

rkusenet wrote:

> IBM did not buy Informix to increase. It bought Informix for following reasons:-
>
> - to assuage concerns of big Informix customers like Wal-Mart. It is strongly
> rumored that IBM bought Informix upon advise from Wal-Mart. One thing is
> sure. With IBM as its new owner, Informix can never go bankrupt, leaving
> its customer high and dry.

This seems the most unlikely reason I can imagine. Why would company A care whether company B, a competitor, went bankrupt? Methinks a more logical reason was that company A did something stupid, from a legal standpoint, and company B saw an opportunity to pick up marketshare and technology for a reasonable price while avoiding costly litigation.

> Oracle has more to worry in about a year when IBM will start poaching
> Oracle customers with a version of DB2 which can stand up to Oracle,
> if not already.

And which runs one, and only one product line: SAP.

> IBM has deep pockets and is into many things. Imagine when they tell
> customers "get a hardware from us and you will get DB2
> free.

Imagine when there is not a single dollar of revenue coming to IBM attributable to the sales of DB2. Imagine the research money. Imagine the marketing dollars. Imagine the sales bonuses. Imagine sales three years later ... better have a good imagination. IBM isn't that stupid.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)