Informix today: an executive statement / Informix hoje: Declaração de um executivo

This article is written in English and Portuguese
Este artigo está escrito em Português e Inglês

English version:
I'm doing a pause in the Panther related articles to make echo of something equally important. The ones more involved in the Informix community surely recognize the name of Robert D. Thomas. He's an IBM executive, more precisely a vice president for Information Management and he has been addressing some communications to the Informix community.
He did it in March and he's doing it again
I won't repeat here what he writes in his latest letter, but I'd like to mention something about him. As you can see in both these letters and also on his session in IIUG conference in 2010, he always and I mean always starts his messages with a story. It may look strange but we must admit that it really works. It's like a signature. In this case, with a very short paragraph he condenses all the rest of his ideas. And it does sound good. I don't know if he digs these stories, or if he has someone to do it for him, or if he has a pocket reference of inspiring stories :).... How he does it, I don't know, but that he does it perfectly he does it.
The topic of this letter is the status of Informix, and how IBM has delivered (or not) on what Rob laid down in March.
Interesting read. You'll love the story.
I'll refrain myself of commenting on his statements, since any agreement would look suspicious and any disagreement could get me fired :)


Versão Portuguesa:

Estou a fazer uma pausa na série de artigos sobre o Panther, para fazer eco de algo igualmente importante. Quem esteja mais envolvido na comunidade Informix certamente reconhece o nome de Robert D. Thomas. É um executivo da IBM, mais precisamente o vice presidente para Information Management e tem endereçado algumas comunicações à comunidade.
Fê-lo em Março e está a fazê-lo agora
Não vou repetir o que escreve nesta sua última carta, mas gostava de mencionar algo sobre ele. Como pode confirmar por ambas as cartas e também na sua sessão na conferência anual do IIUG em 2010, ele começa sempre e repito sempre as suas mensagens com uma estória. Pode parecer estranho mas tenho de admitir que realmente funciona. É como uma assinatura. Neste caso, com um curto parágrafo condensa todas as ideias restantes. E soa bem. Não sei se ele pesquisa estas estórias, ou se tem alguém que o faça por ele, ou se tem uma referência de bolso com estórias inspiradoras :)... Não sei como o faz, mas garantidamente sai-lhe bem.
O tema desta carta é o estado do Informix, e como a IBM tem cumprido (ou não) com o que o Rob expôs em Março como sendo o caminho a seguir.
É uma leitura interessante. Vai adorar a estória.
Abstenho-me de comentar as suas afirmações pois qualquer concordância seria suspeita e qualquer discordância poderia fazer com que fosse despedido :)

1st day at IIUG conference

This has been a busy day... it started out with a presentation from Jerry Keesee with some funny notes... He showed us that he reads the c.d.i.... Then I decided to try the IDS 11 certification and went straight to the exam... It took me around 1H10, but I managed to get 65 out of 74 questions right... This means I'm now an happy System Administration for IBM Informix Dynamic Server V11.
The morning was already won, but I had the chance to attend an interesting session about external tables, presented by Khaled Bentebal, president of the French user group. Some questions were raised and things got really interesting. External tables are not only flexible, easy to use but also damn fast! They deserve an article...

After lunch I had my own session to present.... I will have to publish a complete post about the same topic, but I can't promise that until the conference is over. After that I check up on Jonathan Leffler and David Desautels sessions about security, auditing and compliance.

By the end of the day we had a very clear presentation from Rob Thomas (you should recognize the name from his letter to the community) followed by General Manager, Information Management Arvind Krishna. Rob talked about the new Informix strategy. He was very clear about what he will do, and what he needs the community to do.

The night ended somehow unexpectedly... A band came on stage and started playing some very cool Rock tracks.... That would be normal. But I was very surprised when I found out they all work for... IBM!!!... They finished with "Whole lotta love" from Led Zeppelin and I can assure that they could have a second career... Someone passing by told me that it would be wonderful if IBM could play so well together as these guys do ;)