Re: XPS to IDS - a positive note for all from the road

From the latest IBM quarterly report summary here:

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/080729/ibm10-q.html

The following calculates the gross profits (in millions) for software versus
other major areas of IBM sales for the six months ending June 20, 2008, done
by multiplying the reported revenue times the gross margin:

Software: 8,784.9 = 10,421 * 0.843
GTS: 6,229.8 = 19,777 * 0.315
GBS: 2,544.6 = 10,018 * 0.254
Systems: 3,574.3 = 9,431 * 0.379
Financing: 672.2 = 1,266 * 0.531

Of the big five revenue areas, software delivers the largest absolute
profits, as well as the largest relative profits. Software profits are more
than double those from hardware (Systems above). They are larger than those
from either services wing (GTS or GBS). They are even larger than BOTH
services wings added together (GTS + GBS = 8,774.4).

So your statement that, "Maybe IBM should get out of the software business
altogether because they don't seem to be very good at it," does not seem to
hold a lot of water -- or any water at all.

--
Kevin Cherkauer
Software Engineer
IBM Informix Dynamic Server -- Database Kernel


"InDeep" <indeep@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:z7quk.5945$St.3234@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Obnoxio The Clown wrote:
InDeep wrote:
Obnoxio The Clown wrote:

david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

On 27 Aug, 15:52, InDeep <ind...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Ok, and so what is the point?

If you can't download XPS and play with it, what's the point? That
if
you were one of the handful of what 2 or 3 customers that are
actually
using XPS that you can get the upgrade? Sorry to rain cynicism on
your
parade, it's all nice to hear, but doesn't amount to much of anything
other than nice news.

And why would you downshift from XPS to an OLTP engine if the whole
point to XPS was to offer features you can't do with IDS, such as
real
database clustering. FWIW I actually was an XPS DBA, so I have a bit
of experience with the product, probably one of a handful of people
on
the entire planet that actually used it hands-on as a customer.
Another
great product that nobody knows about.

Mark Scranton (Xtivia Inc.) wrote:




As I had mentioned, I've been doing a number of XPS assignments
lately. Good news is that these customers are ALL considering moving
their XPS environments to IDS (along with doing POC's against other
products). Some of the clients have relatively small XPS
environments,
so IDS in most cases will work fine.
Rumor also has it that even though it was stated awhile back
that IBM
would not make anymore enhancements to XPS, a German bank wanted the
"multiple fragments in a single dbspace" feature that came out in
IDS
10 to be ported to XPS, and in fact, paid for the port. I have no
idea
IF this new port will be 8.5.2 or what, but this approach was
something that was done at Informix back in the day as well (having
a
customer pay for a port they want).
So I encourage those with XPS in house, or those working
with clients
that fit that description, to strongly consider IDS for a move if
they
are considering one. There are a few things to consider though
first -
I'm not saying it just as easy as moving to IDS and all is well.
There
are functionalities and internals that need to be considered in most
cases.
IF you want more details, please contact me directly at
mark.scran...@xxxxxxxxxxx Would be glad to answer any questions.
Thanks -
Mark Scranton
Xtivia Inc.
www.markscranton.com- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Also where is the IDS equivalent of DB2 DPF?

Oracle has RAC
DB2 has DPF
Sybase now has Cluster Edition

and Informix has?
SDS?


This is why people I know say Informix is not a
contender for serious systems, it cannot deploy a database
aroudn mulitple hosts.

Haven't you been paying attention? It can do so, it can do so very
easily and it scales as well.

Unlike RAC.



yeah but customers are willing to blow money on RAC, even if it isn't
good because management can't go wrong deploying Oracle. They buy the
application, and the app says it has to go on RAC. It's a win-win for
everyone. IBM needs to have apps like Oracle does, and insist that the
app goes on either DB2 or IDS. It'll never happen because IBM sells too
much hardware for RAC systems, so why hurt their own hardware sales by
diverting people to DB2 or IDS. They can't even get a straight DB2 &
hardware sale done without hurting either the software sale or the
hardware
sale in one form or another. Oracle is different because they don't
have
to fight against their own hardware sales.



Next time I see Sam, I'll tell him to shut down those extraneous
hardware and consulting divisions. They don't generate any money anyway.
And I'll get him to flog off Websphere as well, because that runs more
on Oracle than IDS. And Rational. And Tivoli. And I'll tell him to get
rid of DB2 as well, because it competes with IDS. Then, I'll tell him to
concentrate on the behemoth that's left: Lotus and IDS.

I'm sure he'll listen to me. I'll tell him you sent me.


I'll admit to a certain amount of applying some rather 'sweeping' logic
to what I said, but the point is, Oracle as a brand is doing more with
less. They don't sell hardware, and this seems to be helping them
rather than IBM's model of selling software ( poorly ) and hardware. If
I go to Oracle's website, it's all consistent and despite the gargantuan
amount of products, ( who cares if the product is total shyte thats not
the point ) there is actually less clutter than going to IBMs' website.
Maybe IBM should get out of the software business altogether because
they don't seem to be very good at it. They seem to be good at
professional services, and selling humans, taking advantage of
developing countries.

I'm even curious if there is a statistical illustration of IBM's success
before selling a lot of software vs selling almost no software and
selling a lot of hardware. They seem to be mixed up as a company, with
a lot of conflicting products and messages. I'm curious if they will
eventually collapse under their own weight. It's not like their
software is even good, in fact they seemed to get a lot of lift from
Informix, because DB2's GUI was really awful in its earlier releases.

Now as far as consulting services they seem to be able to send the right
message, "We're happy to soak you but there is no guarantee that we will
deliver a single fucking thing. Did you pay your bill yet?" . Kinda
humorous when you think about it because fortune 100's keep paying them,
it's hard to tell which is the bigger fool.

*<8o)



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