Fans,

Let me take this opportunity to ramble on a few areas:

#1. We talked about it and now it is here ... In a little over 24 hours, Informix 10 will be an End of Support product. Continuing support kicks in and you will continue to receive non defect support for Informix 9.40 and 10 for the next 12 months as part of this pilot as long as you are current on S&S. Several communications / collateral has been posted on this pilot offering so hopefully it is no longer a surprise. If you should have any questions related to your Informix environment, do not hesitate to ping us at askIFMX@us.ibm.com.

#2. Another analyst report - This is the second report on Informix and this one is from ITG is now available.  I strongly encourage you to read
them.  The ITG report compares the cost of Informix over time compared
to SQL server and concludes that Informix is by far the less expensive
of the two - almost 33% lesser than SQL Server. You can find the report over here.

#3. IOD Conference is around the corner. This October 24-28 IBM will be hosting its Information on Demand
Conference in Las Vegas and you should try and attend this premier conference. Its a great opportunity to meet the
Informix senior developers as well as the executive staff.  In addition
there are many hands on labs and sessions to attend - Trust me you will want to be in multiple sessions at the same time. You will also be among the first to hear about our next Panther release at this conference. Since I am from support, I would also take this opportunity to encourage you to attend the Customer Advisory Council (CAC). It is a great forum for us to discuss a wide variety of topics from product direction and new support offerings. Continuing support and Upgrade bridge will be discussed over here as well. Al Martin - Director WW Data Management Support will be there so be sure to hook up w/ him :) If you have never heard of the CAC and would like to contribute to our strategy, let us know.

Till next time....