[54431] in SAPr3-news
Re: Informix + SAP history
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dave)
Fri May 13 14:29:30 2005
To: sapr3-news@mit.edu
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 18:29:20 GMT
From: Dave <sorry@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <seq981dckicqbnvtrg50kmubo83ni4i56f@4ax.com>
Also sprach Stuart Litel <webmaster@iiug.org> :
:
:Dave:
:
:My information comes directly from the correct sources.
Which would be? SAP? IBM?
:If you wish to discuss or I will be more than happy to get you on the phone
:with the proper people at any time of the day or evening, you are more than
:welcome to contact me directly.
I really have no desire to speak with you on the phone, nor would there be any
point. I am merely seeking clarification on statements you make in print that I
found, based on my personal experience, to be questionable. I am certainly
willing to be proven incorrect, but as of yet you have not done so. Merely
asserting that your information comes from "the correct sources" does not proof
make. And as you made *your* statements in a public forum, I think it is
entirely appropriate that this discussion continued in an equally public forum.
:You might have worked for Informix from 88-97, but I have been working with
:Informix and now IBM for almost 23 years.
Yes? And that means what? That my experience is invalid? Let me repeat what I
originally posted. I was involved with benchmarking THE FIRST PORT OF SAP TO
INFORMIX. That means that prior to that port, SAP did NOT use Informix as its
database. Others have posted similar information. It seems your correct
sources leave a bit to be desired.
:And yes Informix was embedded inside EVERY version of SAP on UNIX until a
:few years ago.
Could you perhaps be a bit more explicit here? Are you saying every version of
SAP shipped with an embedded copy of IDS? And that customers who were using
SAP with an Oracle database had some sort of "stealth" Informix server running?
:There is also BAAN, Lawson and many others that all got there start using
:Informix as their first database and using Informix 4GL.
All very interesting and completely irrelevant, as this discussion is on SAP and
Informix. However, since you do bring up 4gl here, can you provide some details
on which version of SAP was written in Informix-4GL? I have to admit, your
article was the first time I had ever heard that.
:As for me saying "he descries"'... Informix or I should say IDS is the
:second most widely used database on UNIX with SAP in the world.... and for
:the longest time was the number one choice of SAP to use as a database.
I did not quote you as saying "he descries..." That is my interpretation of
your position in the article, where you are saying that the pulling of support
by SAP for new versions of Informix is a bad thing. That is what "descries"
means - you think it is a bad thing. I am not criticizing that position - I
happen to agree with it. I am also not contesting that IDS is the #2 database
for use with SAP.
I do question that "for the longest time was the number one choice of SAP to
use as a database." I do know that SAP had designated Informix as the preferred
database, primarily for business reasons (it seems that Oracle had the
unfortunate habit of going into SAP accounts where Oracle was the database and
trying to get the customer to move to Oracle Apps). I had heard that SAP's
sales force was never entirely on-board with that move, as they did not know
much about Informix. To be fair, my experience in that arena was during the
time frame I worked for Informix, and the situation may have changed
significantly after 1997.
:My facts are correct.
Your assertions are not proof. I can just as easily say that *my* facts are
correct.
Please be aware that I have nothing against Informix. I still think it is the
best db technology out there. However, my personal experience is at odds with
the position you take in your article, and I would like to understand if I am
truly wrong and misunderstood the situation at the time, or if you are, for some
odd reason, attempting to rewrite history. If your sources are, as you say,
correct, it should be a trivial matter to provide some details in support of
your position.
Note: I have added a cross-posting to an SAP news group to see if they have any
comments to offer on the subject.
Regards,
Dave
:
:Stuart Litel
:President
:International Informix Users Group
:www.iiug.org
:
:
:At 10:32 AM 5/11/2005, Dave wrote:
:
:>Yesterday, I received a copy of a magazine called DATABASE Trends and
:>Applications. My eye was caught by an article entitled "Informix Deserves
:>Support" written by Stuart Litel in which he decries SAP's pulling of support
:>for new versions of INFORMIX . Upon reading the article, however, I was taken
:>aback by some of the statements made that don't seem to jibe with history as I
:>recall it. Specifically, Litel writes:
:> ...SAP, which was written many years ago using Informix 4GL,
:> and only ran with Informix in the first version, was abandoning all
:> future Informix products. Until a few years ago, SAP had
:> Informix embedded inside as it was needed regardless of which
:> database the user employed.
:>
:>I worked for Informix from 88-97, and was involved in benchmarking SAP
:>when they
:>*first* decided to offer support for Informix in R3 after having only
:>supported
:>Oracle as the database. So I am confused as to what Litel is talking about in
:>the article. Was SAP really originally written in Informix-4GL? And was
:>Informix ever "embedded inside" SAP, present even when Oracle was the
:>underlying
:>database? Or by "Informix" is "C-ISAM" what is really meant (a far cry from
:>what most people would understand as "Informix")?
:>
:>Regards,
:>Dave
:
:sending to informix-list
