IBM closes US$1b Informix deal

The acquisition doubles the size of IBM's distributed database business.

Big Blue says nearly all of Informix's 2,500 database employees worldwide (close to 400 in Asia-Pacific) will be offered employment with IBM.

"We will add close to 400 talented developers, services, technical and sales people from Informix to our team throughout the Asia Pacific region," Peter Graham, regional manager for DB2 at IBM Australia/NZ said in a statement.

The company says it intends to incorporate select Informix technologies into future versions of DB2 Universal Database, which will remain IBM's flagship database product.

"Now that the acquisition is complete, IBM plans to immediately market and sell Informix's database products worldwide through a fully integrated IBM and Informix sales force and maintain existing relationships with Informix customers and business partners, including support for and updating of current Informix products," Graham said.

IBM says for the first quarter of 2001, it posted a 36 percent increase in its DB2 Data Management business on distributed platforms, "three times faster than the industry growth rate and six times faster than Oracle's database business".