Informix community news

International Informix User Group is hosting the annual Informix User Conference. It's taking place in Kansas City, not far from the Lenexa development labs where most of the IDS development is done.
This allows the conference participants to meet with some of the more influential people in Informix development. Most of the product architects will be at the conference.

It should be starting, and it will end on Wednesday. You can check the schedule on the IIUG site.
The conference is packaged with a lot of interesting sessions, workshops and you can even take the exams for IDS v11 certification. If you're not going to the conference you can also take a free online test just to get some feedback on your knowledge level. The exams are available on the Prometric website and you can get a promotional code which makes the test exam free (usually it costs $10). Please check http://www.ibm.com/software/data/education/cert-assessment.html?ca=09iiugoffer
and go to the Prometric Website. Use the promotional code IIUG2009.

Taking advantage of being at the conference, Cathy Elliot, Informix Software Marketing Manager, has just created a new blob, called Informix Voices ( https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/InformixVoices/ ) where she intends to post some interviews with relevant people from the Informix community. Should be worth to keep an eye on it.

Finally, we are all waiting for IDS 11.50.xC4 which we know by now that will bring table compression to the Informix world. I will post about it when the version is available. Meanwhile if you're going to the IIUG conference, enjoy it. If not, keep an eye on the Informix blogs for updates.