Four J's Tools Prove Key to Efficient Migration of Informix 4GL Applications to IBM's DB2

Business Wire, May 21, 2001

Business/High Tech Editors

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 21, 2001

Four J's Tools Selected by Informix User Group Leader as

"Best Choice" for the Nearly 40% of Informix

Customers Who Employ I-4GL Applications

Four J's Development Tools, a leader in the market for Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools for traditional and e-commerce business applications, is prepared to provide the tools necessary to help Informix customers migrate I-4GL database applications in light of the recent announcement of IBM's (NYSE:IBM) planned acquisition of Informix's (Nasdaq:IFMX) database company.

Stuart Litel, Member of the International Informix User Group (http://www.iiug.org) Board of Directors and a 17 year user of Informix products, comments that in light of the recently announced acquisition, Four J's is "logically the best choice for users, since Four J's tools can be used to plug into almost any back-end database. This will give Informix customers the ability to migrate to DB2 with minimal effort while keeping their front-end business logic intact. In a March 2001 survey we conducted with our membership, we discovered that almost 40% of them are using Informix 4GL as their development environment. These enterprises are natural candidates for Four J's technology. Having said that, I would add that any Informix database product user has a definite need for the Four J's products."

Four J's provides an integrated development environment (IDE) that re-compiles Informix 4GL code to interoperate with a number of databases, including Informix, DB2, Oracle and MS SQL. Four J's IDE lets developers extend the functionality and connectivity of existing applications and build new applications that operate in mixed environments. Developed in 1995, Four J's compiler and business development language (BDL) were created to provide Informix 4GL applications with GUI interfaces. Today, Four Js' product suite has been enhanced to allow database neutrality and to provide a platform for the development of new, "database-independent" applications. Existing Informix customers may better know Four J's under the "Dynamic 4GL" moniker.

Many of Four J's customers have implemented Four J's products to help them achieve rapid application development goals with reduced investment in time and cost and increased ROI. Sue Langlois is Technical Configuration Manager of Versaterm, an Ottawa-based software firm that serves North American police, fire and EMS agencies. She remarks, "What's great about Four J's is that their tools give us cross-platform database compatibility and allow us to provide our customers with a mixed environment. Four J's gave us the platform to keep our application current while protecting our investment. This is a real advantage."

Jean Georges Schwartz, President and CEO of Four J's said of IBM's planned acquisition of Informix, "We are well-positioned to provide Informix customers with a universally adaptable solution -- whether they choose to take a wait-and-see attitude regarding IBM's databases, or whether they actively pursue new migration solutions in response to the recent market shakeout."

Bryn Jenkins, Chief Operating Officer added, "This announcement is a catalyst for many customers who were in two minds regarding their future database strategy. Let's not forget about the user in all the excitement, since the difficult part is not going to be changing database vendor. The real challenge facing customers will be to move those millions of lines of code sitting above the database. These are in most cases business critical applications that took man-years to develop. The cost of re-writing them is astronomical and cannot be justified from a business perspective when a solution such as Four J's exists. Not only can we take Informix 4GL applications and render them independent of the database with a nominal amount of effort, but we can also take those same applications to the Internet through our HTML, XML and Java client technology."

Ralph Davis, President for North American Operations expressed his excitement regarding the announcement, "Small, medium and large enterprises have already discovered the benefits of Four J's Rapid Application Development environment which includes customers such as DHL, Kmart, Kemper Insurance, La Societe Generale, Q8 Petroleum and Redland Lafarge. This announcement has focused attention on our technology and we have received a tremendous amount of interest from the market. Many high-level contacts from companies searching for solutions are asking us how we can help them. We are preparing a campaign in the coming weeks that will clearly communicate this."

Currently, more than one million users worldwide have used Four J's products to build, deploy and manage distributed business applications destined for traditional corporate networks, corporate Intranets or the Internet. According to IDC, North American application development and deployment software revenues will increase from $18.5 billion in 1999 to nearly $47.5 billion by 2004. This growth will push revenue share as a portion of the total North American packaged software market up six points to 30% by the end of the forecast.