US
Announcement (http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=ca&infotype=an&supplier=897&letternum=ENUS210-189)
AP
Announcement (http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=ca&infotype=an&supplier=872&letternum=ENUSAP10-0173)
Canada
Announcement (http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=ca&infotype=an&supplier=649&letternum=ENUSA10-0486)
EMEA
Announcement (http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=ca&infotype=an&supplier=877&letternum=ENUSZP10-0238)
LA
Announcement (http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=ca&infotype=an&supplier=899&letternum=ENUSLP10-0247)

Specific
Packaging and Product Information can be found at : http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/informix/

As
part of the team involved in formalizing the new strategy and the new
pricing and packaging, I am really excited and eager to blog about the
details. To provide some context I am going to rewind a little bit and
list the four pillars/imperatives  of the
Informix Strategy as outlined in several presentations and a letter by
Rob Thomas, VP of Business Development , IBM Information Management to
our existing customers and partners. These are:

• Delight
  the Install Base
• Build Strategic Differentiation
• Create
  a Proactive Culture
• Build New Revenue Streams

All
these imperatives have several initiatives and activities associated
with them and several of them have been put into play or are being put
into play as we speak. The new pricing and packaging that we announced
today is part of the "Build New Revenue Streams" strategy.

So
what did we announce today? What has changed ?
First, let me
talk about the packaging. If you are an Informix customer or partner
today, you would be familiar with the following editions : Enterprise,
Workgroup, Express and more recently the two Warehouse Editions :
Informix Warehouse Workgroup Edition and Informix Warehouse Enterprise
Edition. Additionally, we also offered features as purchase options :

• Continuous
  Availability Feature or CAF, Informix Warehouse Feature and Storage
  Optimization or Compression for the Enterprise Edition
• Informix
  Warehouse Feature for the Workgroup Edition

So here's the first change
- all this has been replaced with simplified some new packaging.
Effective today, the Informix Enterprise Edition, Informix Workgroup
Edition, Informix Warehouse Workgroup and Enterprise Editions are being
withdrawn, along with all the feature options except compression. They
are being replaced with the Informix Ultimate Edition (replaces the
Enterprise and Informix Warehouse Enterprise) and the Informix Growth
Edition (replaces the Workgroup Edition and Informix Warehouse
Workgroup). The Ultimate Edition includes all of the
previously for-charge options except compression. This means
that the Informix Warehouse, henceforth known as the Informix
SQL Warehousing Tool and the Continuous Availability Feature
(CAF) are now included in the Informix Ultimate edition.

The
Growth Edition, targeted towards the mid-market, now includes
the Informix SQL Warehousing Tool, HDR, unlimited data replication nodes
with the Informix Enterprise Replication feature and a 3-node cluster
with limited CAF. The cluster can have a primary and any  combination of
the secondary types with Informix - HDR secondary, Shared Disk
Secondary (SDS or CAF) or Remote Standalone Secondary (RSS) to form the
3-node cluster. The Growth Edition can utilize up to 4 sockets (maximum
of 16 cores) and 16 GB of memory and is available on Linux / Unix
platforms. The Growth Edition does not include partitioning, parallelism
and compression features.
All of this at highly competitive
pricing.
That leads me to the next
significant change being announced: IBM now offers
two no-charge editions : Informix Innovator-C and Informix
Ultimate-C.
Informix Innovator-C is a no-charge
edition that customers can use to develop, test and deploy in
production - no purchase required. It's available across all
the platforms. A new form of support known as "IBM Selected
Elite level Support" is available as optional purchase if
you want to get technical support on the edition. Details of the
optional support can be found here.


The Innovator-C edition has resource
restrictions - it can utilize 1 socket with a maximum of 4 cores and
has a 2 GB memory limit. Data replication (Enterprise Replication) is
allowed across 2 nodes. HDR is also allowed, however, CAF and RSS are
not available on this edition. Other features and capabilities not
included are : Compression, Advanced Access Control, Informix Warehouse,
partitioning and parallel features. This is a great candidate for
transaction processing requirements for small businesses or universities
supporting  web applications or web sites. This is also ideal for
applications or solutions that require embedding a hassle-free, highly
reliable and performing database engine such as OEMs. Distribution of
Informix with such a solution does require a distribution license and
you need to contact an IBM sales representative.
As is evident
from the name, we want you to adopt it and share your experience. 

The
Ultimate-C Edition is a special edition for Windows and Mac.
This edition is for solution providers, service providers, ISVs and
customers who are committed to the Microsoft Windows platform or the Mac
OS platform. Especially on Microsoft Windows where there is a very wide
range of database driven applications and solutions, the Ultimate-C
provides scale-up capabilities not available with the Innovator-C
edition. The Ultimate-C can utilize up to 4 sockets (maximum of 16
cores) and 16 GB of memory. This edition includes features such as
Informix SQL Warehousing Tool, HDR, unlimited data replication nodes
with Enterprise Replication, parallelism and partitioning. A 2-node
cluster is allowed with 1 Primary and either an HDR secondary or a
Remote Standalone Secondary. Continuous Availability Feature (CAF) and
compression are not available on this edition.
As with the
Innovator-C Edition, BM Selected Elite level Support is available as
optional purchase if you want
to get technical support on the edition. Again, details of the optional

support can be found here. 

Also similar to the Innovator-C edition, distribution requires a
distribution license and you need to contact an IBM sales
representative.

This new pricing and packaging does
several things for you. First, as part of the bigger strategy for
Informix, it will help lower your Total Cost of Ownership. Second, it
allows you to leverage and deploy some of the powerful features in the
various editions - such as CAF and Informix Warehouse further helping
you accelerate your time to value and quickly build new applications.
Don't
forget, IBM Informix is the database software voted number #1 in
customer satisfaction. Read about that here.

For
pricing information contact your IBM sales representative. If you have
questions, you may send them to the following alias: askifmx@us.ibm.com.
I am including here a summarized high level chart to compare
and contrast the new pricing and packaging compared to the previous
offerings:

Rajesh Nair
IBM Informix Product Manager