Informix Heralds a New Age for Data Warehousing
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Informix Corporation, a technology leader in enterprise database-powered solutions, has announced the completion of its acquisition of Red Brick Systems, delivering to market open end-to-end data warehouse solutions for the most demanding enterprise environments.
With this acquisition, Informix combines the most powerful data mart and data warehouse technology and consulting expertise, outstanding partnerships and expert distribution channels into one company focused on the enterprise's success. In addition, as part of its expanding support for multi-vendor decision support environments, including Oracle databases, Informix also announced important enhancements to its MetaCube OLAP analytic tool. Together, these developments will allow Informix customers to fully maximize return on their overall data warehouse investments.
"Nineteen ninety-nine is the pivotal year for data warehousing at Informix," said Leonard Palomino, vice president and general manager, Informix Data Warehouse division. "In order to continue to provide customers with industry-leading decision support solutions, we looked to Red Brick for three things -- data warehouse talent, additional presence in key markets, and "best-in-class" data mart technology. With those elements in place, we've met another high-water mark in becoming the best data warehouse company in the industry."
Strong Market Presence
The combined knowledge and expertise of both Informix and Red Brick in selling, delivering, and supporting customers' data warehouse solutions now significantly strengthens Informix's global presence in vertical market industries such as retail, telecommunications and financial services -- key market areas targeted by Informix for data warehousing. The Red Brick brand will be maintained for Red Brick products in selected geographies including Japan because of its strong equity with customers. "Data mart and data warehouse customers in major markets understand the value proposition of the Red Brick offering," said Palomino. "Informix wants to continue to leverage and extend this advantage for the high-end, enterprise data warehouse market."
"Red Brick's data warehouse products and service have been an excellent fit for our needs at Nine West," said Gene Alvarez, data administrator at The Nine West Group, Inc. "We are very excited about Red Brick's acquisition by Informix as it assures us that these products will gain much greater market awareness and strength through their inclusion in Informix's product family and its broad industry penetration."
Stronger Solutions Through Integration and Multi-Vendor Environment Support
With the acquisition complete, Informix is moving forward aggressively with its plans to fold Red Brick into its already substantial data warehouse offerings. As part of its efforts to meet customers' evolving data warehousing needs, Informix is delivering a maintenance release of Red Brick Warehouse within the next thirty days and has scheduled a major new release of Red Brick Warehouse in the second half of 1999. This upgrade to the industry's best data mart solution will provide customers with investment protection and added functionality to meet their ever-changing data warehouse requirements.
As the next step in its multi-vendor integration plans, Informix announced today that MetaCube ROLAP Option Version 4.1, which fully supports analysis of data in Oracle databases, is now generally available. In addition, Informix is currently developing a new version of Informix MetaCube ROLAP Option, its comprehensive business intelligence offering, to leverage the unique capabilities of Red Brick Warehouse. This new release is scheduled to enter Beta testing in the second quarter of 1999, and will be generally available early in the third quarter.
Expanded Team Talent, Acknowledgment by Industry Experts
With the acquisition, Informix has tapped into engineering talent that pioneered data warehouse technology as well as services, support and sales expertise. An expert group of Red Brick employees have now become an integral part of the Informix data warehouse team -- adding to a culture of technical innovation to solve the most challenging data warehousing issues.
"The acquisition of Red Brick accelerates Informix's timetable for its data warehouse practice and product line," said Wayne Eckerson, vice president of technology services at The Data Warehouse Institute. "In one fell swoop, Informix got the manpower it needed to fill marketing, sales, and consulting positions in its new data warehouse division. It also got some handsome technology to add to its arsenal of products."
"This acquisition provides Informix with some important synergy," said Robert Craig, vice president for application architectures at the Hurwitz Group. "Informix has saved critical months of development time, which could very well change the competitive landscape in data warehousing."
Informix on Track with Strategy
"The completion of the Red Brick acquisition and the enhancement of the MetaCube OLAP tool for multi-vendor decision support environments are both essential elements of our overall strategy to become the market leader in high end open systems data warehousing," said Palomino. "We are on schedule with our plan to offer the most powerful and comprehensive decision support solutions in the business. Our next areas of emphasis will be analytic applications and expanded packaged ERP warehousing solutions."
About Informix
Informix Corporation, based in Menlo Park, California, provides innovative database products that assist the world's major corporations to attain competitive advantage. Informix is widely recognized as the technology leader for corporate computing environments ranging from small workgroups to very large parallel processing applications. Informix's database server, application development tools, superior customer service, and strong partnerships enable the company to be at the forefront of major information technology solution areas including data warehousing, high performance OLTP, and Web/E-commerce. For more information, contact the sales office nearest you or visit our Web site at http://www.informix.com.