On Sept. 15, Skyline College was blessed by a rare visit. Jim Finn, vice president of Worldwide Communications for Oracle Corporation was a guest speaker for the Journalism program. Luckily for Skyline students, the presentation was open to everyone.
Due to a classroom mix up, Finn, a man who is used to receiving great respect, was forced to wait while a new room to speak in was secured. Once in the newly acquired room, he began to recall his journey to his current stature. Once a political science major in southwest Virginia, Mr. Finn got one of his first jobs at The Denver Post Washington Bureau. After a few years he decided that he wanted a career change and got an internship with IBM, before moving over and up to Oracle.
“I’m glad I went down this path,” Jim explained to the listening students in an overcrowded room in building 8.
Although his original plan was to become a politician, Jim Finn quickly found his calling in Public Relations. The president of Oracle once told him, “PR is broken and I need you to fix it.” Apparently he has. Oracle, employer of 42,000 employees worldwide, is one of the biggest business software suppliers in the world and Finn is, although not directly creditable, most definitely a huge part of this success.
Oracle is currently in the midst of acquiring smaller business software corporation PeopleSoft in what recent newspaper headlines have called a “hostile takeover.” Jim Finn, using friendlier words, only briefly mentioned Oracle’s takeover of PeopleSoft in his speech. He called it an “unsolicited offer” and went on to explain that the merger of Oracle and PeopleSoft would be beneficial to consumers and stockholders.
PeopleSoft, making things difficult for Oracle, is using what is called a “poison pill” defense. This strategy lowers the price of PeopleSoft’s stocks so existing shareholders can buy more at a discount. Oracle then must spend more money to completely buy PeopleSoft.
Currently, Oracle is engaged in a lawsuit against PeopleSoft to be rid of the “poison pill.” Oracle says taking over PeopleSoft would be good for the investors, because stock would stop going down and not just stay at the price it was and would start to rise, much like the Oracle stock.