Amid negative third-quarter results and the resignation of its chairman, Informix Corp. this week split into two independent companies.

Analysts were not surprised by the move, as Informix, in Westborough, Mass., has struggled to compete with the big three database vendors: IBM Corp., Oracle Corp., and Microsoft Corp.

Both halves of Informix initially will be wholly owned subsidiaries, with the goal of launching each into independent public companies.

One of the companies, to be known as Informix Software, will contain the database portion of the original Informix. The other, to be named by year's end, will provide software for a variety of databases.

Informix Software will focus on cultivating its installed base of 25,000 customers and targeting existing and emerging e-businesses, according to Mike Wipperfeld, vice president of marketing at the unnamed solutions half.

Informix's sprawling array of database offerings has hurt the company's bid for market share, said Mike Schiff, an analyst at Current Analysis, in Sterling, Va.

"They have a solid collection of database technologies, but they haven't wrapped it up well," Schiff added.

In dividing the company, Informix aims to change that. "Our intent is to merge the code into one single database," Wipperfeld said.

This would increase the quality of the Informix database and make it easier for customers to grasp the company's offerings, but is a major challenge, according to Schiff.

The half of Informix that the company plans to name by year's end will concentrate on e-commerce, analytics, and Web publishing.

For the first time, the company will support databases from IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, and Sybase, laying to rest the question of whether or not it planned to make DataStage, which it acquired with Westboro, Mass.-based Ardent Software, a proprietary data warehousing suite.

The solutions half of Informix will also sell a portal product that supports its other offerings.

"We clearly will be positioning the portal in the same space as Sybase, Plumtree, Viador, and Hummingbird," Wipperfeld said.

Informix is not the first database vendor to refocus its energies toward the e-commerce arena. Sybase recently aimed itself at the portal market, while scaling down its database efforts to hone in on its strongest markets.

But Sybase and Informix are strong in vertical markets such as financials and telecommunications, according to Peter Urban, a senior analyst at AMR Research, in Boston. "[They] know they won't compete with Oracle, IBM, and SQL Server, so they are offering specific applications on top of those," he said.