Informix proves Larry wrong with its DataBlades software modules

The impossible has been achieved. Oracle supremo Larry Ellison stated categorically and repeatedly at his company's European User Group Conference in Amsterdam that Informix would never manage to integrate its Universal Server technology with the Illustra content manager database. Informix seems to have proved him wrong, and the result is DataBlades - software modules to be designed by both Informix and third parties that extend the functionality of Universal Server and allow it to dynamically store various different data types.

Informix has announced that 24 companies have already joined the Informix DataBlade Developers Program. The existing 24 early adopters should expand in number later this month when the beta of the DataBlades development kit ships, with volume shipments by December. DataBlades are modules that snap into an Informix database and allow complex querying of data in multiple mediums. A Var can develop its own DataBlades, or snap existing ones into their applications to add new dimensions to them. David Cope, Informix's director of DataBlade development, in London to promote the new concept, said he expects over 80 per cent of DataBlade development to be done outside Informix. He said: "I believe that the DataBlade industry can become the world's largest concurrent software factory.