The company will offer a free development licence of its database software, as well as 20 free deployment licences per end-user site (for the first five sites) to developers who build Informix database applications on NT, said Informix International managing director (South Asia) Kishore Taishete.

"We want to aggressively stimulate the development of NT applications on the Informix database platform. The initiative provides huge value and incentives for existing NT developers or new ones to leverage the reliability, scalability and serviceability of the Dynamic Server database on NT."

Underlining the details of the scheme, he said developerscan also get free licences for the Universal Data Option and Web Integrated Option. This would provide an opportunity to create competitive advantage applications, he added.

The Universal Data Option adds support for extended data types, while maintaining full application compatibility with Informic Dynamic Server along with support for spatial, text and image data types. The Web Integration Option makes it perfect for database-driven websites.

The scheme was launched abroad on June 15. In India the programme was unofficially launched on July 1. The Indian operations are currently centred in Mumbai with offices in Bangalore and Delhi.

Informix also has a strong presence in the ERP segment. It has joined hands with SAP, PeopleSoft and BAAN to provide complete solutions. "This market will witness great growth in the coming years," said Taishete.