IBM To Buy Informix Database Business For $1B

The companies revealed the news early Tuesday. After the deal closes, the remaining piece of Informix will be called Ascential Software, the companies said. Ascential will integrate its own DataStage product with IBM's DB2 Warehouse Manager. And IBM plans to use Ascential's media asset management tool, Media360, in some of its own offerings.

Details of the deal, worth an estimated $1 billion in cash, will be disclosed later Tuesday. But some pundits already say the move is a clear positive for IBM.

"It's dead on. IBM gets a great bunch of technology, an entry into a much-lower-end customer base, medium-sized businesses that IBM has typically not been able to get. And, given IBM's incredible research on DB2, they'll go right into Oracle's face. Sybase will fall by the wayside," says John Landry, former strategist for IBM and now principal with Lead Dog Ventures.

Informix has been on a roller-coaster ride in past years. The company beat consensus estimates when it reported earnings Tuesday, earning $18.3 million, or 6 cents per share, compared with $27.1 million, or 9 cents a share, for the year-ago quarter. Analysts had expected earnings of 5 cents per share. When the board ousted CEO Jean-Yves Dexmier last July and installed director Peter Geynes in his place, it was the third CEO the company had seen in a year. In 1997, the company was rocked by the departure of chairman and CEO Phil White after a horrendous third quarter. After that, White's successor Robert Finocchio stepped down as CEO.

Last year the company also saw the departure of its CEO and was sued by IBM for patent infringement.

Some saw hope in Informix's buyout of Ardent Software in December 1999. Ardent made data management and integration software. Geynes had been chairman and CEO of Ardent before the merger.