[ale] Buisness Case for Informix on Linux (fwd)

[Todd Graham Lewis]

I love reading people considering doing stuff like this.

1) This post makes perfectly clear why the economics of Linux can
be _really_ compelling in a business environment, especially in a
distributed, retail environment which needs DB/POS-style stuff.

2) SCO isn't the only one feeling the Linux crunch.  BSDI is raising
their prices as well in the face of heavy customer loss to Linux and
the other free unices.  If Beowulf keeps progressing, pretty soon we'll
be stealing business from SGI's supercomputing division.  8^)

-- 
Todd Graham Lewis       Manager of Web Engineering    MindSpring Enterprises
(800) 719-4664, x2804             Linux!               tlewis at mindspring.net

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 09:22:28 -0500 (CDT)
 From: Geoff Kuchera <geoff at abu.mn.org>
Reply-To: linux-informix at iiug.org
To: linux-informix at iiug.org
Subject: Buisness Case for Informix on Linux

Hi,
	I am the Systems Administrator for a One Hour Photo/Studio Chain. 
We use Informix on SCO boxes implementing a Point of Sale system at each of
our stores.  We have 38 stores soon to expand.  The version of SCO that we
are using, and have a cookie cutter installation for, has been discontinued.
So we are faced with a delema.  We can spend around $80,000.00 to
upgrade SCO Unix, or we could look at the alternatives.  

	I just talked to a SCO rep who told me that I could expect
several new versions to come out over the next five years.  And, that SCO 
has several price increases schedueled in the next couple of years.  It 
occurs to me that SCO might be losing the battle with Linux/Free BSD/BSDI
etc. What is SCO thinking? "Let's see... we have free competition out there 
in the world, how do we combat this?  Well, let's piss everyone off by 
discontinuing the version of our software that they are using, forcing them 
to upgrade, and raise the prices so that all of the people dumb enough to 
stay with us can offset the cost of the ones that jumped ship..."

Note: Sorry about the above ravings, but I have been working with SCO Unix now
for going on 10 years and I have never seen such behavior from a company.  
Sorry folks but SCO is not Microsoft...there's a big difference between 
upgrading _a_ system for $90 (Microsoft) and upgrading one for $3,000 (SCO).

	Anyway, I'm seriously looking for an alternative in Linux. One where 
I can cookie cutter a configuration and, once I get it to work, I can just 
keep replicating it out to our sites. I won't have to worry about some 
company discontinuing a product that works just fine for us, just so they can
offer more features that we don't need and don't want to pay for. (Of course, 
it should have proper licensing for all of its commercial products.)  

	We are running the Informix standard engine/SQL/4gl at all of our 
sites.  We are also looking to upgrade our office servers to On-Line 
next year.

	I can also tell you that our parent company is looking for an 
alternative for the same Point of Sale system at 1,100+ sites....  So, as 
you can see there is a potential out there.

	I am excited to see that finally a large RDMS company is considering 
porting a major product to Linux.  This can only further the feeling out in the
world that Linux is a serious operating system and that it is useful for more
than just a toy operating system at home. 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=Say yes to: LINUX-=
Geoff Kuchera                                   Internet:  geoff at abu.mn.org
8441 Egret Ct.                                          geoff at winternet.com
Chanhassen, MN 55317                  "Friends don't let friends do DOS..."