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Informix history
Informix company history timeline
Sippl and King left Cromemco to found Relational Database Systems (RDS) in 1980.
At RDS, they turned their attention to the emerging RDBMS market and released their own product as Informix (INFORMation on unIX) in 1981.
Relational Database Systems had $2.1 million in revenues and $169,000 in earnings in 1983.
Also in 1985, the company introduced the first SQL-based RDMS software version for local area networks of DOS-based personal computers.
International distributors were responsible for 13 percent of sales, up 200 percent from 1985.
The final release of this product was version 3.30 in early 1986.
Innovative, which had 1987 revenues of $18.8 million, had developed a package of integrated software applications for the personal computer called SmartWare.
The company ended 1988 with a $46.3 million loss.
There was significant turnover in sales and marketing personnel, and two vice-presidents of sales left the company in 1988.
In 1988, Informix purchased Innovative Software, makers of a DOS and Unix-based office system called SmartWare and WingZ, a spreadsheet program for the Apple Macintosh.
White announced a corporate reorganization in January 1989.
Release 4 of Informix's database engine was delayed from early 1989 to the end of the year.
Sippl, retaining his post as chairman, turned over the management of the company to Phillip E. White in early 1989.
In 1990, WingZ ports started appearing for a number of other platforms, mostly Unix variants.
Contributing to 1992 sales was a single $26.8 million contract for the Army National Guard and Army Reserves.
However, having decided to further expand its offerings for other operating systems, Informix increased its marketing efforts for a version of its RDMS launched in 1992 to run on Novell Inc.'s Netware Loadable Module.
In March 1994, Informix shipped OnLine 7.0, its first true multi-processing database.
Michael Stonebraker had promised that the Illustra technology would be integrated within a year after the late 1995 acquisition, but as Gartner Group had predicted, the integration required more than 2 years.
In August, as shares dropped another 22 percent, it announced that it had booked questionable sales as completed transactions and planned to restate its 1996 financial results.
Although Informix took a technological lead in the database software market, product releases began to fall behind schedule by late 1996.
Unhappy with the new direction of the company, XPS lead architect Gary Kelley suddenly resigned and joined arch-rival Oracle Corporation in early 1997, taking 11 of his developers with him.
As the only company in its industry to cover Unix, NT, and Linux, Informix sought to remarket itself, changing its logo and tag line to "The one with the smartest data wins." By the second quarter of 1998, it had once again turned a profit.
Finocchio stepped down in 1999, replaced by Jean-Yves Dexmier.
In July 2000, the former CEO of Ardent, Peter Gyenes, became the CEO of Informix, and soon re-organized Informix to make it more attractive as an acquisition target.
Their brush with success was surprisingly short-lived however, and by 2000 a series of management blunders had all but destroyed the company.
In April 2001, IBM negotiated with Informix to buy the core database business.
Many were had at bargain prices as the software industry was caught up in the economic slump following the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks.
In May 2005, IBM bought Ascential, reuniting all of Informix's assets under IBM's Information Management Software portfolio.
In 2017, IBM and HCL entered into a 15 year intellectual property license for Informix.
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Informix competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Synthesis Systems | 2009 | $8.7M | 175 | 12 |
| Asure Software | 1985 | $119.8M | 420 | 126 |
| Riverbed Holdings, Inc. | 2014 | $1.2B | 2,354 | 20 |
| Internet Securities | 1994 | $17.2M | 200 | - |
| McAfee | 2006 | $2.1B | 6,210 | 25 |
| RSA Security LLC | 1982 | $740.0M | 2,700 | - |
| Progress Software | 1981 | $753.4M | 2,100 | 10 |
| F5 | 1996 | $2.8B | 6,550 | 187 |
| MicroStrategy | 1989 | $496.3M | 2,528 | 46 |
| Sybase | 1991 | - | 3,576 | - |
Informix history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of Informix, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about Informix. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at Informix. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by Informix. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of Informix and its employees or that of Zippia.
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