Ooh, I made a mistake and posted the wrong headline, sorry. The correct headline is:

IBM DB2 on Power sets new TPC-C Benchmark – Beats HP and Oracle by Wide Margin

But honestly, would you read this article if DB2 had been mentioned in the headline. Presumably not.

You'll probably ask yourself: What does this press release has to do with Informix ?

To be honest, I asked the same question myself as I received the email from IBM as an Informix Data Champion thru their data champion program. It has nothing to do with Informix ! In fact I never received useful information regarding Informix during my the two-year-membership in the IBM Data Champion program. Almost everything posted to the data champions has to do with DB2 (:- I'm sure that my Informix data champion colleagues agree with me on this point.

But it reminds me that IBM promised big improvements regarding the marketing and positioning of Informix at the beginning of the year. That happened after the IIUG posted a critical editorial in their monthy newsletter in January this year.

So where are we know about 6 months later ?

Hmm, I can see two things:

• A press release covering Informix and Smart Meters
• Informix pricing and packaging change

Unfortunately we did not even see an official press release from IBM regarding the pricing and packaging change. This has only be posted thru the Informix blog community and on the IIUG website. So I can see only a single press release covering Informix in 8 months since the beginning of 2010. I'm not counting press releases where Informix has been named in a subordinate clause beside other IBM products.

That is an evidence of incapacity from the IBM marketing or press side, isn't it ?

How should potential customers outside of the existing Informix community know about the interesting no- and low-cost offerings that IBM has with Informix ?
How should non-informix ISV's and developers get attracted to Informix if they never the chance to read about the generous Informix offerings ?

I'm not talking about a great Informix advertisment campaign that would attract ISV's to Informix. Only a simple, free-of-charge press release that could help a little (:- This could lead to the conclusion that IBM's intention is still to "market" Informix only inside the existing Informix community.

In contrast to Informix we have seen several press release vom IBM covering DB2 in 2010. In fact IBM even did a "hidden" advertsing campaign for DB2 while always claiming that they'll never advertise individual products (:- Funny, I remember that IBM once said that they change the marketing focus from one database to the other year by year. However in reality every year is a "DB2 year" and it seems that IBM marketing focus on Informix only in their spare time. BTW, I'm not the only one that believes that there is no fair breakup of marketing resources between DB2 and Informix and that IBM generally does almost nothing to create product awareness for Informix outside of the existing Informix community.

Anyway, it seems to me that the doubts of the Informix community regarding IBM's renewed Informix strategy are legitimate. Only 11% believe that IBM will roll out the new strategy seriously, about 50% are skeptic and 39% don't trust IBM.

I find these numbers alarming. IBM would be well advised to demonstrate soon that the promises they made on the powerpoint slides are not once again lip services. Otherwise they'll gamble away one of the greatest assets they have:

The faithfulness and loyality of the worldwide Informix community !