Like a Rolling Stone

                                                                                                            Updated: 8/30/18

It has been seven intense months for the HCL Informix team since we started this journey, and it has been like a band on tour which at the same time is creating new releases. We can’t thank enough for so much positive energy in all of our audiences!

On tour, we had been in many places energizing the HCL​ Informix User Groups: Raleigh, Munich, Brussels, Paris, São Paulo, Hamburg and Warsaw – where we returned to after many years, to discover that there still a lot of fans there. We were also doubling our efforts together with IBM in our joint Hands-On IOT Workshops in Mexico DF, Bogota, São Paulo, and Florianopolis. We were also the guest presenters at the 4JS’ annual convention in Cancun. And to complete the tour, we met fans and friends in private venues like in New York, Boston, Denver, Bentonville, San Francisco, Houston, Buenos Aires, Lima, Chennai, New Delhi, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Paris, Prague, and London.

At the same time, on the production side, we delivered two “XCiting” major fix-pack releases: XC9 and XC10, that came full of new functionalities keeping us pushing ahead as technology leaders. Check out our previous blog on "What's new in HCL Informix 12.10.xC10".
 
Now what is coming is even better! Enjoying the highest degree of freedom, our creative process is unleashed and we are working on very progressive features that will be available faster to the market.  
 
In our Labs of Lenexa and Munich we’re working on the final touches of the new releases of HCL Informix for AWS, Azure and Google clouds, that will come out with state-of-the-art ways of purchasing. Sit tight and get ready, because we will make some noise when launching it! 
 
Also, the HCL Informix band keeps growing every day, with some of our former top players coming back to contribute in this new journey. It’s nothing but good news and positive vibes on these reunions. Oh! And a new Lenexa Lab for HCL Informix is being built as we speak. 
 
In our global Go-To-Market team, we just brought back Joseph Veleeparambil who is leading our Lab Services and hired Douglas Acker to lead our HCL Informix IOT business development. With them, we are launching our portfolio of Services offerings, such as: Premium Support Line (with the highest SLAs for critical missions), Advanced Advisory Services, and IOT Hands-On Workshops that we are making available to extend and complement our Business Partners services capabilities.  
 
Talking about Business Partners, we are also working with several of our friends on designing the new model adapted to the novelty of our methods of releasing that can help us to grow together and keep a vibrant business ecosystem around the globe. New ideas and friends are absolutely welcome to this permanent dialog! 
 
All of that we have been doing – which is a lot so far - is pursuing three major objectives in order to come back to the top of the charts: (1) maintain and recover our client base, (2) bridge to new generations, and (3) expand our footprint in IOT. 
 
To maintain and recover our fan base we need not only to keep our highest standards of product quality and performance but have to continue coming out with new breakthrough features while providing a context of a superior experience. We will keep meeting our clients and reinvigorating their communities all around the world and, in exchange, we expect them to become a factor of contagious positive energy while keeping us honest.  
 
On the other hand, to bridge to new generations we not only have to keep being the best database but we also need to become cooler, trendier and more attractive, and easier to access to the users that communicate and use analytics in different ways than the ones we were used to doing. That’s why we are releasing on all the major cloud infrastructures, we already talk Python and Node.js natively, and we are compatible with MongoDB APIs. Moving forward, we’ll continue working on developing modern graphical interfaces, machine learning and new data science features among other things. We will invest a great deal of effort in reaching out to these communities as it is a major priority for us. It is not only about bringing new fans but also new energy and progressive ideas for the future. 
 
The way we are doing our IOT Hands-On workshops leads in that direction. We want to share and educate about the superior advantages of HCL Informix as the only enterprise-class DBMS that can fit into a small device, doing it in a natural cognitive way: playing with the tools and learning how fast and convenient it is deploying an IoT solution with HCL​ Informix. 

We are a company that started as a group of friends inventing in a garage, so we are absolutely positive that the new breakthrough IoT ideas and applications may also come out the same way. And that’s why we want to be relevant, present, and easily accessible since the very moment of the conception of the idea. Anywhere! 

While on the corporate side of IoT, we leverage all of the tremendous knowledge and experience that HCL ERS an HCL IoTWorks bring to the market, as a true leader we are proud to be part of, as well as we partner with our IBM brethren successfully. 

Wow! It has been a very intense seven months on tour and we’ll keep this pace, and we want all of you to be part of this experience: Fans, Partners, Players, all are welcome to join! 

Like a rolling stone, this legendary HCL​ Informix band is full of positive energy and poised to be back to the top of the charts, nonstop. 

Marcelo Cabane
Sales Director at HCL
Connect with me on LinkedIn

Informix is a trademark of IBM Corporation in at least one jurisdiction and is used under license.