Informix

An UNIX database vendor based in Menlo Park, California, USA.

History
Company was founded in 1980 by Roger Sippl as Relational Database Systems with funding coming from one of his ex-girlfriends, the first product of RDS being an ISAM based indexed file system for Unix called "C-ISAM" alongside an report writer known as "Ace" and query system for C-ISAM known as "Informer". But soon there after joined by a relational database product initially called "Marathon" based on an earlier database package Sippl and Laura King had developed while working at Cromenco called the "Cromenco Relational Information System" (CRIS) and ran on Cromenco's CP/M clone, C-DOS. The database was packed with the query system and report writer and a forms builder called "Perform" into a package called "Informix Relational Database Management System" and soon became known in the business as just Informix.

Their products initially ran on systems by vendor of S100 based business computer systems called Onyx Systems, they had a CP/M Z80 system called C8000 that could be outfitted with an optional S100 Z8000 board that ran a licensed version of Unix. The complete system with a hard drive cost less than 10,000 USD at the time which made it by far the cheapest Unix system available while fighting with minicomputers as far as speed was concerned, and as RDS was selling the Informix RDMS for considerably less than competitors like Oracle the combination of the hardware and software sold extremely well for the time even though the Informix system was not an SQL system like most of their competitors products.

Changed its name to Informix in 1986. The company was one of the first ISV to deliver a product on the OS/2 market, and the first to deliver a database product in the form of the SQL Informix Database and related toolsets in January 1988, beating out main competitor and arch enemy Oracle by a few months. However after IBM and Microsoft started delivering their own multi user database products for OS/2 a year later, coinciding with the arrival of a new hyper-competitive Informix CEO called Phillip E. White, the company changed its stance on the platform completely and used every opportunity to mention its unimportance, despite that Informix continued to update their OS/2 offerings into the latter half of the 90s.

OS/2 Products

 * Informix Database
 * Informix-4GL
 * Informix-ESQL
 * Wingz

Personnel

 * Roger Sippl - RDS Founder - CEO until the late 90s
 * Laura King - RDS Programmer - ex-Cromenco
 * Bill Hedge - RDS Programmer
 * Neil Blumenfield - RDS Customer Support
 * Ginny Harrington - RDS
 * Roy Harrington - RDS