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If there's one thing Phil White doesn't want, it's for Informix Software Inc. to be another Oracle or Sybase. "I want Informix to be the largest database supplier in the world," says White, the company's CEO. "But I want to do it differently than any of my competitors."
Granted, Informix has a long way to go before it catches up with the two market leaders in database revenue, let alone surpass them. Informix's total revenue last year came to $469 million, a far cry from Oracle's $2.97 billion and Sybase's $694 million. But Informix hopes to prevail with its single-minded focus on nothing but databases.
Informix has come a long way. Since its start in 1980, the Menlo Park, Calif., company has grown, on average, by more than 30% a year, regular as clockwork. Recent numbers are even better. For its first quarter this year, ended March 31, Informix's revenue jumped 54% over the year-earlier quarter. "Informix has gone from being a sleepy technology company to a leader in the database industry," says Rob Tholemeier, who analyzes database vendors from the Burlingame, Calif., office of consulting firm Meta Group Inc. "Informix has a way to go, but they're getting there."
Informix is much closer to the No. 2 spot in database market share. During 1993-94, Informix boosted its share to 19% from 17%, according to market watcher International Data Corp. (IDC) in Framingham, Mass. That's just a single percentage point from Sybase's 1994 market share of 20%, up from 18% the year earlier. Oracle is still No. 1 in market share, though its hold in 1994 slipped to 35% from 38% a year earlier, says IDC.
In one measure-market capitalization, or the value of its shares-Informix has already overtaken Sybase. In May, Informix's market capitalization clocked in at $2.9 billion, higher than Sybase's $1.5 billion. (Oracle's market capitalization was $15.2 billion.) That means it would cost more for a company to purchase Informix than to buy Sybase.
"Informix's higher market cap indicates that it's a more valuable company," says David Benhaim, a financial analyst at First Albany Corp. in Boston, "especially since Informix's price per share hovers in the same range as Oracle's price per share. The bottom line is that Informix shareholders hold...