ShadowRAM: January 5, 2004

The Oracle folks say they want PeopleSoft, but that's kinda hard to believe at this point. Still, I guess they pretty much have to go through the motions and at least pretend it wants the purchase to happen. To that end, it has taken out a $1.5 billion line of credit, according to an SEC filing made public last week. Creditors include ABN Amro Bank, Credit Suisse First Boston and others. To make good on its PSFT tender offer, Oracle says it needs roughly $7.5 billion for the whole kit-and-kaboodle, including fees.

Cisco acknowledged that Andreas "Andy" Bechtolsheim, famous as one of Sun's co-founders, has left the building. Bechtolsheim, who was veep and GM of Gigabit switching, joined the networking giant in 1996 after it bought his startup Granite Systems for $220 million. Word has it that Andy is itching to start a new company again.

Speaking of Sun, the scuttlebutt is that the troops are none too pleased of late with their chairman and CEO. Engineers are grumbling about squeezed salaries in the face of Scott McNealy's recent move to exercise a bunch of options and his ongoing tendency to act like a cowboy. One can only wonder if Sun and its boss can pull out of a prolonged funk.

You gotta love it when a public relations consultant (aka freelance flak-ie) takes his own kind to task for the overuse and abuse of certain terms. That's just what Tom Madden has done, chastising folks for their overuse of words ranging from "bubble" to "seamless" to "excited." Madden wrote "Spin Man" and other PR-related books. Other bugaboos: the use of the term "old adage." "Ever hear of a new adage?" he asks rhetorically in a press release posted (where else?) on PR Newswire.

But I've got a list of my own no-nos. How about nixing "super" altogether? (At least by any employees of that large company in the Northwest.) How about licking "leveraging" once and for all? And pounding "paradigm shift" into oblivion? And incinerating "inflection point" or "crossing the chasm"? I demand an end to "on demand." And let's get rid of "grid." And "googling." On second thought, I kinda like that one.

Any PR pro who doesn't realize that reporters' eyes glaze over when any and all of these terms are trotted out hasn't got his or her fingie on the pulse.

Finally, Madden is not "excited" about the overuse of that word. He's got a point. How many times have we heard that a CEO is "excited" about his company's quarterly results or the point release of a product? "Hold it, bub," Madden says. "Burst that excitement bubble. %85 So what if they beat the Street by a penny? Shouldn't that make one more suspicious than excited?" Amen to that.