CHICAGO, IL -- On the heals of the closing of IBM's acquisition of Informix's database assets, the International Oracle Users Group-Americas (IOUG-A), an independent association of Oracle technology users, has announced the creation of the IOUG-A Informix-to-Oracle Special Interest Group (SIG) which will focus on the specific needs of IOUG-A members who are considering or are in the process making the move from an Informix to an Oracle database. Kevin Clukey, Lucent Technologies and former member of the Informix Users Group, will head the group. "My goal as president of the new IOUG-A Informix-to-Oracle SIG is to create a knowledge base of information that will assist Informix users in their technology transfer needs to various Oracle platforms as their business evolves," said Clukey. IOUG-A president, Rich Niemiec eluded to the creation of this new SIG on the TechTV program Silicon Spin Thursday night. In today's announcement Niemiec states, "We welcome the Informix database users to our innovative and agile users group which is much like the one they used to have. Our goal is to provide them the information that they'll need to consolidate on the Oracle database as well as provide a users voice to Oracle Corporation." The IOUG-A will provide Informix-to-Oracle SIG members with the following benefits: -- Web site for the distribution of technical information for Informix users who are exploring the performance advantages of using Oracle or are in the process of switching to Oracle; -- mailing list-server for free form discussion of issues; -- education at IOUG-A Live! the users group annual conference and exhibition in the direction of desired; -- forum for discussion and a business meeting at IOUG-A Live!; -- periodic surveys of members and publish results. The new Informix-to-Oracle SIG will join the current IOUG-A Special Interest Groups which include, Business Intelligence Group, Linux, Oracle Portal, PeopleSoft and SAP. IOUG-A, headquartered in Chicago and independent of Oracle Corp., provides the premier forum for all customers and vendors of Oracle products located throughout North America, Central America, Latin America and South America. It has membership of more than 5,000 Oracle customers, plus an audience of more than 35,000 from combined chapters in the United States alone. Its mission is to provide Oracle database administrators and developers with information, education, networking and advocacy, created for users by users, as well as to be the voice of the users community back to Oracle Corporation. For more information about IOUG-A, please call 312-245-1579 or visit http://www.ioug.org . For more information visit www.oracle.com