This week's "Informix Voice" is Kevin Brown, lead Architect for IBM Informix Dynamic Server. He's been very busy leading the architect team with a variety of activities and travels this year, including participation in numerous interviews with press and industry analysts. Kevin has over 25 years of experience in the database field. Before coming to IBM, Kevin worked at Britton-Lee where he helped develop the worlds first dedicated database machine. He went on to Illustra, where he worked on extending the capabilities of traditional relational databases. Since coming to IBM, Kevin has introduced time series and real-time capabilities into IBM's relational database products. He now leads architectural strategy for IDS.

I asked Kevin to share what he's focusing on right now.

He replied, "This has been a busy year with some very significant Informix releases: Informix Warehouse and deep compression. We also have an exciting roadmap coming up. We continue to investigate and invest in the latest technologies, such as Cloud Computing initiatives, and enhance the areas where Informix has always been strong -- availability, ease of use/embedability, performance, and more warehouse functionality."

Kevin promised a follow up chat to divulge more details, but he assured me that we will see some very interesting new capabilities at the IBM Information On Demand Conference in Las Vegas in October.

Kevin wears many other hats in addition to his technical architect role.

Talking with customers and business partners about their business and product requirements is another key area of Kevin's focus. He has traveled around the world in the last 12 months  - many places more than once, including China, India, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Florida, Texas, Las Vegas, and of course Kansas.

Kevin also leads a sub-team that is focused on the telecommunications industry.

"IDS is a leader in the telecommunications industry. There's a 95% chance that if you pick up your phone or cell phone, you are using IDS. The telco subteam focuses on that market and is responsible for determining customer requirements and new features for this ever-expanding technology. We want to make sure that IDS continues to address the needs of this community and their new markets. With the addition of the solidDB® Universal Cache to our portfolio of products, we have an unbeatable Carrier Grade class solution."

"For example, online charging /billing systems need to manage all aspects of call tracking. For a simple phone call, the provider needs to make sure that this is a valid transaction and allowed within the customer's calling plan. They need to track for potential fraud, and they also need to collect all of the usage information for end of the month billing. It becomes more complicated with the variety of new cell phone services and applications. All of this requires a combination of real time data collection and historical data validation. We all expect immediate response time on our cell phones and absolute reliability - and telco service providers need to meet that expectation even during peak calling times. The combination of IDS and solidDB covers the entire spectrum of what telco service providers and network equipment providers need."

I told Kevin this was a great lead-in to shamelessly plug one of our newer demos covering IDS in the telecommunications industry.

Watch this space for more updates from Kevin in the future.