Informix Corp is placing its bets on data warehousing and e- commerce as the two technologies that will turn it into a winner. Under a significant company-wide reorganization, the California- based database vendor yesterday created two new divisions dedicated to data warehousing and e-commerce, with separate profit and loss responsibility. The news comes as no real surprise. Only two weeks ago, at the company’s International User Conference in Seattle (CI No 3,461) chairman and CEO Bob Finocchio said Informix’s priority from here on in was to focus on ways of growing revenues. This is exactly what this announcement’s about, Jean-Yves Dexmier, Informix’s executive VP and CFO told ComputerWire, We’re putting emphasis on the two main areas where we believe there’s most growth potential. We’ve fixed the company, we’re back to sustained profitability and now we’re concentrating on growing the top line. He added, We’re putting our bets down, and these are pretty bold bets, but I really believe that by focusing our resources on these two key areas we have the ability to accelerate the revenue growth of the company. Dexmier said the main reason for the change was that customers at the high-end were increasingly asking for solutions, not just products like databases. In the past, he said Informix could only address their problems so far, as the data warehouse and e-commerce consultants were separate from the rest of the sales and solutions process. But under the new regime, all the separate units have been brought together under the two new groups. Leonard Palomino, who’s been with the company for 13 years, will head up the data warehouse division. Previously, Palomino was responsible for growing the North American Consulting and System Integration business. And Wes Raffle, formerly head of North American sales, will become general manager of the web and e-commerce division. Dexmier said he expected stronger growth in the data warehousing space in the short term, but long-term (18 months to two years), he predicted both divisions would create similar revenues. The data warehousing market is very strong right now and we expect rapid acceleration in this market. Web and e-commerce solutions are just starting, but we think, with our database technology we are in the best position to take advantage of the market as it begins to really take off.
