ve to object relational databases was ideal for Web solutions and applications. By using these object-oriented databases, companies can store images as well as text and numbers, and relate all of those elements to each other in order to produce highly specific applications. Thus a company could store its parts catalog on-line in a visual format, and users can select particular parts based on visual as well as textual information. Such applications are currently in use in the Web environment (Hutheesing, 1998, p. 202).
Recognizing that the company has existing customers who are using standard relational databases and who are not yet ready to move to object relational databases, Informix ensured that existing users would not be left out of the product advances. The company has long emphasized scalability in its products, and set about to engineer its standard databases such that users can transform their databases to object relational databases through the use of a plug-in program (Hutheesing, 1998, p. 203).
Whether because changing database companies can be an expensive proposition or because the company was truly successful in marketing its approach to Web-based solutions, Informix gained market share in the late 1990s through the addition of such companies as America Online, Lucent Technologies and Calvin Klein (Hutheesing, 1998, p. 203).
Informix continues to face strong competition from Oracle and Sybase, among others. In late 1999 and early 2000, there was considerable attention focused on Web security as a number of highly visible sites were hacked and others fell victim to sabotage which resulted in users being unable to access these sites. Oracle attacked the problem with its Oracle Parallel Fail Safe, a software package which bundled cluster software from Hewlett-Packard with Oracle's own Oracle8i database. This product transfers in-process e-commerce transactions to another node if the first node fails and is de...