Kara began Monday with some of the hard facts from the pending AOL-TimeWarner (TWX) split. Stock issued for the post-spinoff AOL places the company’s total implied value at around $3 billion. Also on the list of stuff from 1994 being jettisoned from tech companies is the original instant messenger, ICQ. Kara reported that AOL seeks to shed the brand in an effort to keep the larger ship afloat. Over at Yahoo (YHOO), Kara opened the lid on CEO Carol Bartz’s shifting of top execs. In Silicon Valley’s house of cards, everyone watches out for a shuffle.

Over at Digital Daily, John brought some hard numbers to the stresses being felt by AT&T’s (T) 3G network thanks to a certain fruit-flavored smartphone. It seems that the iPhone is largely responsible for the 2,000 percent increase in data traffic in the San Francisco Bay Area compared with a year ago. (Weekend Update doesn’t claim sole responsibility.) Keeping up with layoff news these days is almost a full-time job. It’s a good thing Paczkowski is on the case. This week, Sony-Ericsson let roughly 2,000 employees go. The firm plans to shutter whole offices in both the United States and abroad. John finished strong with a whole slew of posts about the forthcoming Google (GOOG) Chrome OS, which was released in a developer’s beta this week. Next year, the good kids may be getting their stockings filled with Chrome rather than Apples.

You can never tell what MediaMemo will have up its sleeve in a given week, and this one was no exception. Peter came in early with reports that Wired magazine is another publication betting on a certain tablet. Wired may pave the way for other Condé Nast publication e-editions. From the department of “Hey, it looks like it worked for them,” a couple of music giants will release a Hulu-like service for music videos. No word yet on whether the Internet killed the video star. Peter closed it out this week with the fizzle that will be Oprah’s broadcast career. The talk-show-host-turned-deity will end her broadcast career in 2011, but may not be sorely missed by CBS, according to MediaMemo. Everyone is pretty torn up about Gail leaving though.

Personal Technology went a little off the reservation this week and covered an intriguing specialty gadget with a very specific target audience. The reading aid for the visually impaired is unusual for many reasons, not the least of which is that its branded Intel (INTC) both on the inside and outside. The reader uses a downward-facing camera to read text and translate it directly to speech. Walt was pleased with the device on the whole, though he encountered some bugs and a somewhat steep learning curve that may be a function of the novel nature of the product. Over at Mossberg’s Mailbox, the lead question this week was about data loss. Once the geek shudders stopped, Walt let the reader know that there are many alternatives to Apple’s (AAPL) Time Capsule drives, and the integrated Time Machine option is one useful alternative. At Mossberg Solution, Katie won a fight with a Pixi and brought us the blow-by-blow account. The cheap-and-cheerful version of the Palm (PALM) Pre features a stripped-down price. That savings came at too high a performance cost, said Katie. She praised Palms webOS, but came down on the side of spending a little more to get the Pre.

Stay tuned and check back often. Weekend Update will be back next week as long as we can make it out for the Black Friday sales with all our fingers and toes.

Seems that Oracle has decided that perhaps petulantly refusing to cooperate with the European Commission’s antitrust probe isn’t the best course of action here and has asked for “the opportunity to further develop its arguments in relation to the commission’s concerns.” Presumably, the company wouldn’t need such time if the EC’s objections were as baseless as it has argued. The standoff between the two, then, would appear to be over and we may see a solution to the matter early next year.

Kara came out swinging this week over Meg Whitman’s insistence that the Skype acquisition by eBay should be put in her “win” column. Whitman, former CEO of eBay (EBAY), is running for governor of California, and Kara had her spin detector set to maximum. Speaking of dystopia, Kara covered the release of Ken Auletta’s new book, “Googled: The End of the World as We Know It.” Auletta posits that Google (GOOG) is more Spock than Kirk and lacks important emotional intelligence. He made similar accusations about another subject of his recent works: Microsoft (MSFT). Insert sarcastic gasp here. Kara rounded out the week with a flight aboard the airship “Broadband,” aka Virgin America. It seems as though Facebook is everywhere these days, and on this day in particular, Facebook was just a few rows behind her in the person of a PR guy from the company. The moral is that maybe the greatest thing about that speedy in-flight Internet is farming out the awkward seatmate talk to your email inbox. Kara did get an invitation to Facebook’s Washington, D.C., offices out of the deal.

Digital Daily opened the week with an invasion of droids. No, John wasn’t stuck in front of an Xbox playing Terminator; he was covering the release of the first 100,000 units of Motorola’s (MOT) newest iPhone competitor. John also covered Apple’s (AAPL) opening of a “significant store” in New York this week, which may shed light on the company’s future retail strategy. John sees potential for the newest store to serve as jai-alai palace, should the whole iPhone thing not work out. And just in case Kara’s story about Google’s lack of feeling wasn’t frightening enough, John brought us a look into the search giant’s designs on the software space occupied by Microsoft Office. While Google claims to have no plans for domination of office productivity, it sure seems like it would like to paint the whole cloud Chrome.

Peter gave us the cold hard facts about the projected costs of the coming AOL spinoff, as he began the week in somber tone. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, AOL estimates losses will run to nearly $200 million and end employment for up to 1,000 people. Nothing gets Peter up from that kind of low quite like a good session with “The Office,” and this week’s episode was just too good to pass up. The team at Dunder Mifflin did a little Wall Street Journal paywall pole-vault right on screen. Commentary on recent “Murdochian” events or not, Peter thinks it’s just good TV. MediaMemo covered the pending AOL spinoff from the other end this week and addressed the biggest problem in the room head on: AOL is going to enter a space it hasn’t filled since the days when the sound of “you’ve got mail” meant you were high tech. Google runs the yard now, which will make it harder for AOL’s old dog to play with the comparatively young pups.

Most people think bigger is better, but in the strange world of tech columnists, small reigns supreme. Walt’s Personal Technology column this week covered three new laptops with some very sleek features to please the holiday consumer. New offerings from Toshiba, HP (HPQ) and Lenovo came under the Mossberg microscope, and all were pronounced impressive, if a bit pricy. Walt’s semifavorite is the Lenovo, but his preference for the slim, light design admittedly came at the heavy expense of limited battery life. The trip to Mossberg’s Mailbox this week yielded answers on pressing questions from potential Motorola Droid owners, a person hoping to make the move from a Palm (PALM) PDA to an iPhone, and from an older computer user thinking about making the switch to Apple’s new bigger-screened iMac. Over at The Mossberg Solution, Katie reviewed the new BlackBerry Bold from Research in Motion (RIM), which seemed to have 10 percent more features and a similar reduction in size. The newest model wasn’t quite as Bold as its predecessors, Katie found. Many features originally reserved for this higher-end model have been passed down to the rest of the product range. Her advice: have a look at the Tour or Curve 8900 before going Bold.

Tune in next week to get the 30,000-foot view on the wide world of tech from the road-ready AllThingsD team. Let’s hope we can get Wi-Fi on that flight too.

In remarks made during AMD Financial Analyst Day, CEO Dirk Meyer said that Intel’s (INTC) current legal woes “ratify” AMD’s (AMD) allegations.

“We’ve said for a long time that our success in the marketplace was hampered by anticompetitive behavior on the part of Intel,” Meyer said. “And over the last 12 months that we’ve seen our statements ratified by regulators around the world….I’m looking forward to a future in which our ability to succeed as a business is really determined by the quality of our products and customer relationships. And I can tell you that hasn’t always been true.”

The acquisition, which has been approved by both companies’ boards, should bolster HP’s data center strategy and, thanks to 3Com’s routing business, intensify competition with rival Cisco (CSCO), which has lately been expanding into HP’s businesses.

“Companies are looking for ways to break free from the business limitations imposed by a networking paradigm that has been dominated by a single vendor,” Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Servers and Networking, HP, said in a statement.

“By acquiring 3Com,” Donatelli added, “we are accelerating the execution of our Converged Infrastructure strategy and bringing disruptive change to the networking industry. By combining HP ProCurve offerings with 3Com’s extensive set of solutions, we will enable customers to build a next-generation network infrastructure that supports customer needs from the edge of the network to the heart of the data center.”

Below, the official release:

HP to Acquire 3Com for $2.7 Billion
Will create networking industry powerhouse with a proven, edge-to-data center set of solutions and global reach

PALO ALTO, Calif., and MARLBOROUGH, Mass., Nov. 11, 2009

HP and 3Com Corporation (NASDAQ: COMS) (”3Com”) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase 3Com, a leading provider of networking switching, routing and security solutions, at a price of $7.90 per share in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $2.7 billion. The terms of the transaction have been approved by the HP and 3Com boards of directors.

This combination will transform the networking industry and underscore HP’s next-generation data center strategy built on the convergence of servers, storage, networking, management, facilities and services. The resulting business outcome will help customers simplify the network, deploy a unique and innovative edge-to-core network fabric for the enterprise and improve IT service delivery capabilities, all delivered with best-in-class price-performance.

“Companies are looking for ways to break free from the business limitations imposed by a networking paradigm that has been dominated by a single vendor,” said Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Servers and Networking, HP. “By acquiring 3Com, we are accelerating the execution of our Converged Infrastructure strategy and bringing disruptive change to the networking industry. By combining HP ProCurve offerings with 3Com’s extensive set of solutions, we will enable customers to build a next-generation network infrastructure that supports customer needs from the edge of the network to the heart of the data center.”

“Our extensive product line and innovative technology together with HP’s breadth and scale will expand our global opportunity,” said Bob Mao, chief executive officer, 3Com. “3Com’s networking products are based on a modern architecture which has been designed to offer better performance, require less power and eliminate administrative complexity when compared against current network offerings. Our products are enterprise proven and widely deployed in the world’s largest banks, manufacturers, Internet service providers, public utilities and retailers.”

The acquisition of 3Com will dramatically expand HP’s Ethernet switching offerings, add routing solutions and significantly strengthen the company’s position in China–one of the world’s fastest-growing markets–via the H3C offerings. In addition, the combination will add a large and talented research and development team in China that will drive the acceleration of innovations to HP’s networking solutions.

3Com also brings to HP best-of-breed network security capabilities through its TippingPoint portfolio. For the past four years, TippingPoint has been the leader in Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant” in its evaluation of leading network security products. Approximately 30 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies have already deployed TippingPoint intrusion prevention systems.

“We are confident that we can run our entire global business of 300,000-plus employees, including our next-generation data centers, entirely on the new HP networking solutions,” said Randy Mott, executive vice president and chief information officer, HP. “Based on our experience and extensive testing of 3Com’s products, we are planning to undertake a global rollout within HP as soon as possible after the completion of the acquisition.”

Under the terms of the merger agreement, 3Com stockholders will receive $7.90 for each share of 3Com common stock that they hold at the closing of the merger. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of domestic and foreign regulatory approvals and the approval of 3Com’s stockholders. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of calendar 2010.

HP anticipates that the transaction will be slightly dilutive to fiscal 2010 non-GAAP earnings.

Big news often comes in small packages and BoomTown was all over the little moves that meant big stories this week. Kara covered a massive redesign of Microsoft’s MSN homepage that follows the old car-racing-mantra-turned-Web-design ethos: Add power and lightness. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when BoomTown covered the end of the Skype ruckus. All is forgiven, and all it took was a sizable stake in the company and seats on the board. Kara rounded things out by running a quick post about a spankin’ new feature from AllThingsD: Every Friday, the just launched “Almost Famous” will cover interesting start-ups through the eyes of their chief geeks. Kara’s all about geek love.

Digital Daily isn’t usually big into bean-counting, but this week the numbers were where it was happening. The first sales figures came back from Apple’s iPhone launch in China, and the numbers weren’t good. As of pub time for the post, only 5,000 iPhones had been (legitimately) purchased. If the Chinese numbers were a picture of modesty, the App Store’s numbers were parading through Time Square in an orange jumpsuit singing Eddie Grant’s “Electric Avenue.” The two-year-old App store’s epic popularity has pushed its already outsized download numbers past the two-billion mark. Not to be outdone with unprecedented flash, Google (GOOG) violated its own nonrule late in the week and ran a semi-ad on the Google homepage. You say ad, they say synergy, but at the end of the day it was a direct promo for Motorola’s (MOT) new Droid, which runs on Google’s Android platform.

MediaMemo started the week off right with a fresh bite from Apple (AAPL). Peter covered the revamp of Apple TV, which will now be offered for $30 a month. News from News Corp. was no surprise this week, when MediaMemo brought us the story that the media empire (and AllThingsD’s uber-parent company) was doing fine as long as you only pay attention to cable and movies. Broadcast and print? Eh, not so much. Finally, Peter asked a few probing questions of Google CEO Eric Schmidt in regard to his company’s suspicious addition of a “blog” tag attached to some Google News postings. Schmidt speculated, but the ultimate answer wasn’t, as he suggested, because of your mother.

Deep in his Personal Technology bunker, at an undisclosed location somewhere in rural Maryland, Walt got to take a crack at the new Motorola Droid this week, and his response was, well, very positive. He praised the Droid’s exceptional battery life and call clarity, even if the touchscreen wasn’t quite up to the iPhone bar. All in all, he said it was a win for Verizon (VZ) and the Google’s mobile OS.

Mossberg’s Mailbox continues to fill with questions about the speculative Apple tablet. Walt offered some other sage advice about making the Windows 7 switch with 64 bits, and what to do with all that grief over the death of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Outlook Express.

Katie was sweatin’ to the newbies this week, with an energetic review of Fitbit, a wireless fob for tracking calories and exercise stats. The Bluetooth headset-sized clip attaches to your waistband and uploads your activities to the Fitbit Web interface, where you can track how many calories you did or didn’t burn. You can also add water consumed and calories eaten. The Fitbit has been shipping since September, but won’t appear on retail shelves until after the holidays. No word yet on if it will include a “Cheesecake Factory” tab to the interface so as to allow for calorie counts that require exponents.

Like any good gadget lovers, we are all about the small and mighty here at AllThingsD. Stay tuned in with your RSS reader, Twitter feed or the good ol’ homepage. We’ll keep bringing you the little things you need to know.

Wednesday morning, Boomtown opened with the exclusive confirmation we’d all been waiting for: Microsoft’s Bing search engine had inked deals with Twitter and Facebook. The age of real-time is upon us. As if the world weren’t complicated enough, Microsoft (MSFT) opened its own Apple stor… er, Microsoft stores to challenge Apple’s (APPL) retail success. Kara went in like lion and out like Carl Icahn this week with a Friday profile of the mogul. Icahn, activist investor and owner of the world’s best name to precede “haz cheezburger,” quietly left Yahoo’s board this week waving a flag of defeat at CEO Carol Bartz.

Digital Daily took a hard look through the Windows this week. John covered the Microsoft’s release of the new leaner, meaner Windows 7. John’s conclusion: Microsoft’s lucky number could be seven, even if that’s just because it’s anything but Vista. Hopefully they programmed this one with 20 percent more customer goodwill. John reminded us this week that you never can tell what John McCain is going to do next, unless you follow the money. Maverick McCain introduced a bill to prohibit the Federal Communication Commission from implementing the Net neutrality rules it released in recent weeks. Digital Daily wasn’t too surprised to see Sen. McCain take the bold position, as it’s squarely in front of the same telecom industry that has been so generous to him in the past. To round things out, John covered a particularly interesting legal chess game/slap fight between Nokia and Apple. Nokia (NOK) may have sued Apple (AAPL) over cellphone patents, the analysts say, as a way to fend off possible suits in the other direction over Nokia’s multitouch assets.

MediaMemo makes sense of that crazy New York state of mind. That clarity was more valuable than ever this week when Demand Media got in our faces. Peter explained Demand’s model for flooding the net with cheap news stories designed to maximize clicks and add revenue. We’ll have to see how the “content by the numbers” game plays out. In the latest installment of the Condé Nast saga, Peter brought news of a new attempt to grab some of those new media dollars. GQ Magazine will offer its December issue in an iPhone version. This move comes during a round of downsizing all over the Condé empire. While Condé Nast’s strategy seems to be to get users to pay for something they couldn’t get before, it appears that Hulu plans to ask users to pay for something they can currently get for free. Hulu doesn’t know how it will happen yet, but the video service is looking for a way to begin monetizing its vast collection of movies and TV shows. If the company goes with “Hulu Plus” as a subscription option, maybe Peter will get a nod to the naming rights.

Walt spent his column inches this week on the evolution of the Mac. Midweek, Apple released refreshed versions of the iMac and MacBook, as well as the new Magic Mouse. All signs seemed positive with the new products, which feature updates like a larger screen option for the iMac and a rounder, more lovable case for the white plastic MacBook. When Walt went out to check the mail, Mossberg’s Mailbox was again full of Windows 7 questions. Walt discussed some of the new low-vision features in Windows 7, explained the admittedly complicated price points and told readers where to download the operating system.

Katie brought a sparkle to the week with a review of Goby, the self-proclaimed search engine of fun. While she was impressed by the concept, she spotted some gaping holes in search returns, like hundreds of missing events she knew to be on the calendar and others that had already come and gone. Goby might be a great idea, but Katie won’t be relying on it until things like accuracy and timeliness are better addressed.

Weekend Update can make two promises for what’s coming next. First: If it is happening in tech, you will find it at AllThingsDigital. Second: Weekend Update promises to keep the ghost puns to a minimum in the next edition.

Kara and the Boomtown blog were in New York this week and started the party early with Bob Pittman–well known media and Web exec. Kara wasn’t dancing on the tables, but did admit that Pittman’s new venture, a top-shelf tequila, was plenty tasty. BoomTown went straight from the sauce to the nose candy in a short interview with Ford’s (F) social media guru, Scott Monty. While Monty might have been using cocaine as a metaphor for a new kind of marketing that changes consumption of all other marketing, Weekend Update gets his subtext. As if BoomTown didn’t have enough hardcore “cred,” Kara headed off to fabulous Las Vegas for the annual meeting of the blogs at BlogWorld. Nothing that happens in Vegas this weekend will stay there–not with thousands of bloggers roaming the Strip in search of a new meme to latch on to.

Digital Daily trapped a Snow Leopard early in the week. John reported on Apple’s (APPL) admission that the Snow Leopard version of OS X occasionally overdelivers on its promise to free-up disk space. In certain circumstances, the furry filcher can sneak in and make off with all your user data. If it was data loss you were looking for though, no one beats the good folks at Danger who, up until recently, housed all kinds of personal data associated with the Sidekick line of smart phones. The Microsoft (MSFT) subsidiary permanently lost contact, calendar and other personal data associated with many accounts. Weekend Update thinks that Sidekick users were given fair warning, though; the company name is, after all, Danger. John rounded out the week with something unusual–good economic news from the tech sector: Intel (INTC), Google (GOOG), IBM (IBM) and AMD (AMD) were all feeling a little more flush than their prognosticators had predicted, each beating their admittedly dismal forecasts by at least a little.

MediaMemo followed up on some important stories, beginning the week with Twitter’s spam problem. Peter reported that the Web’s biggest microblogging pipeline updated its tools for trapping the flotsam and jetsam. Twitter is reportedly in talks with several leading search engines that want to feed on all that delicious real-time data. Peter also updated the readers on the tough times over at Condé Nast. This round of cuts was a little closer to the magazine publisher’s crown jewels than last week’s cuts and closings, with the layoff of at least six staffers from Vogue. Peter closed out the week with a cheeky little open letter to the Federal Trade Commission. He asked some important questions regarding the FTC’s recent obsession with bloggers and disclosure. He seems to think that most serious bloggers don’t like to sell their credibility for tiny discounts to obscure events.

Walt and Katie were all over Windows 7 this week, with help on all fronts for those making “the switch.” Before he got to that, though, Walt spent some personal tech time with some supersmart phones. He elevated Motorola’s (MOT) CLIQ and RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry Storm2 to the level of potential iPhone killer and praised their updated features and power as mobile computers rather than simply phones. Mossberg’s Mailbox heralded the beginning of the Windows 7 flood and was chock full of questions about upgrading and replacing some of the functionality that was built into Vista. The Great One also offered thoughts on installing Windows 7 on a virtual machine running in OS X, but couldn’t speak to the boot camp option until Apple releases more info…and the proper drivers.

Katie tested PC Mover from LapLink as an all-in-one option for moving precious data to Windows 7. While she praised the $15 program’s efficiency, she thought it was a little sleazy that it also tried to get her to purchase other programs while it had her data in its clutches. All went well, and the moral of the story is that this one-trick pony upgrade assistant was worth the minimal price tag.

Breaking News: Weekend Update is getting intermittent reports that Kara may have been kidnapped from BlogWorld by a roving band of mommybloggers in white robes, all slowly chanting “mon-eh-tize” as they piled into their Honda minivans. They may or may not have sealed her into a 30 foot-wide, saucer-shaped balloon, which could be floating westward toward the Bay Area.

If we get her back, you can look forward to another fully staffed, fully loaded week at AllThingsD.

This past July, Google CEO Eric Schmidt left Apple’s board presumably for the same reason. The cozy relationship between the companies, which increasingly compete in the cellphone and operating systems markets, had led the FTC to question whether close ties between their boards of directors violate antitrust laws. With Schmidt gone from Apple’s board room and Levinson gone from Google’s, it would seem there’s no longer reason for the FTC to do so.

“Art has been a key part of Google’s success these past five years, offering unvarnished advice and vital counsel on every big issue and opportunity Google has faced,” Schmidt said in a statement. “Though he leaves as a member of our Board, Art will always have a special place at Google.”

Though not nearly as special as his place at Apple, where his remaining board seat and true allegiances clearly lie.

UPDATE:Levinson’s resignation from Apple’s board appears to have appeased the FTC. “Google, Apple, and Mr. Levinson should be commended for recognizing that overlapping board members between competing companies raise serious antitrust issues and for their willingness to resolve our concerns without the need for litigation,” FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement. “Beyond this matter, we will continue to monitor companies that share board members and take enforcement actions where appropriate.”

“Every new day of uncertainty is potentially very harmful to the various businesses of Sun, reducing competition in the market,” Mickos wrote. “A delay in the closing of this transaction is therefore only going to work against the respectable goal that you set out to achieve when launching the probe into this acquisition.”

Oracle, says Mickos, has far better reason to ramp-up Sun’s MySQL business than it does to harm it.

“Even if Oracle, for whatever reason, would have malicious or ignorant intent regarding MySQL (not that I think so), the positive and massive influence MySQL has on the DBMS market cannot be controlled by a single entity–not even by the owner of the MySQL assets. The users of MySQL exert a more powerful influence in the market than the owner does,” he continues. “Many expected Oracle to harm MySQL as far back as 2005, when they acquired the InnoDB storage engine that plays a crucial role for many MySQL customers. And yet Oracle increased their investment in InnoDB since that time, making MySQL a stronger player in the market.”

An interesting argument and one that appears to offer Mickos little personal gain. Now an entrepreneur in residence at Benchmark Capital, Mickos says he has no financial interest in the transaction. So why bother making it? “I couldn’t live with the fact that I’m not taking action,” Mickos told News.com.

Mickos’s letter will no doubt be welcomed by Oracle, which has repeatedly said it has only the best intentions for MySQL. “No, we’re not going to spin [MySQL] off,” Oracle CEO Larry Ellison told attendees of a Churchill Club event in Silicon Valley earlier this year. “We are keeping everything. We’re keeping tape. We’re keeping storage. We’re keeping x86 and SPARC. And we’re going to increase investment in all of them.”

People familiar with the matter tell The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg that Brocade (BRCD) is seeking a buyer and that both Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Oracle (ORCL) are among its potential suitors. No deal is imminent, but rumor that one might be coming was enough to spike Brocade’s shares some 15 percent.

It’s easy to see why Oracle and HP–and IBM (IBM) as well–might be interested in Brocade. The company’s portfolio of data-networking products and services would do much to help HP take on Cisco (CSCO). It would also give Oracle its own line of networking gear, fulfilling CEO Larry Ellison’s dream of offering customers complete systems as T.J. Watson’s IBM once did.

That said, there are issues with both scenarios. As Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Ittai Kidron explained in a research note this morning, an acquisition by Oracle would require the company to really commit to hardware as a long-term growth plan. “If the company truly plans to become a systems company (one-stop shop software/hardware), then Brocade would be a nice fit, especially including Sun Microsystems with no overlap,” Kidron said, adding, “we’re a bit in the dark on strategy here.”

And what of HP? That’s potentially far more problematic, what with equipment overlap and revenue implications. “Brocade would add the missing data center switch architecture as well as a strong presence in the SAN switch market,” Kidron explained. “That said, there would be massive overlap with HP’s ProCurve networking unit, which we believe would be disruptive. Also, IBM and EMC are 10% customers for Brocade and could be lost as customers (along with HP’s 10% business of Brocade).”

So will Brocade be tech’s next big buyout?

At Hewlett-Packard.

Quite a coup for HP (HPQ), which clearly hopes Seidl brings a bunch of Sun (JAVA) resellers and customers along with him. And quite a blow for Sun, which is seeing customer loyalty tested to the extreme thanks to the company’s planned takeover by Oracle (ORCL).

“Customers and partners alike, especially those grappling with the uncertainty of Sun’s future, need a technology partner that can eliminate barriers to business growth quickly,” Dave Donatelli, executive vice president of enterprise servers and networking at HP, said in a gloating statement. “We anticipate that Randy’s knowledge of the real business issues faced by today’s CIOs, coupled with his high level of energy, passion for technology and a strong network of channel relationships, will expand HP’s success.”

“People familiar with the situation” tell The Wall Street Journal that the plan under consideration would combine HP’s printer and PC businesses under Todd Bradley, who currently oversees only the latter. It’s not yet clear what such a move will mean for Vyomesh Joshi, who heads up HP’s Imaging and Printing Group. Presumably, the company will keep him around. Under his leadership, HP’s printer business generated more than 30 percent of the company’s total profits during its last quarter.

In any event, should the plan be approved (and it is contingent on Hurd’s approval), it will bring HP back full circle to 2005 when then-CEO Carly Fiorina merged HP’s printer division with its struggling PC division. Except now that printer growth has slowed, it’s the PC business that’s the powerhouse.

Tough choices, *cough*, eh Mark?

Kara was half James Bond, half Indiana Jones in the cities and jungles of BoomTown this week. She jet-setted, jet-lagged and still managed to report on a genuine cougar fight.

BoomTown waved goodbye to merry old England and racked up some more frequent flier miles early in the week heading back to the techie embrace of Silicon Valley. Before her tray table was locked, though, Kara made a quick stop at music darling-of-the-moment Spotify. Daniel Ek, founder and CEO, hopes to bring its pay-per-month music service to millions of American mobile devices, to add to its hefty presence in the U.K. and Europe.

As D-Force One touched down at AllThingsD headquarters, one of the valley’s original major players shook things up with a $100 million branding move. Yahoo (YHOO), possibly now spelled Y!hoo, changed its brand in support of an overall shakeup of its services. Kara hearkened back to the D conference and wondered if rebranding the company Y!#@&$oo might have been more appropriate, considering CEO Carol Bartz’s preference for “salty” language.

And not to be left out of a worthy chuckle, BoomTown brought readers the inside scoop on the cougar that came to town. Yes, a cougar–or mountain lion, if you’re from California–was seem roaming the hills above Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., campus this week. The company circulated a fairly priceless memo that included tips on how to successfully fight a cougar. Any such advice against snow leopards, however, was omitted.

As Kara was jet lagging, John was running full-tilt over at Digital Daily. On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission released a new proposal to institutionalize Net neutrality. The proposal would ban Internet service providers and data deliverers from prohibiting or throttling content to promote their own services. John pointed out that it wasn’t too surprising that AT&T (T)–and Republicans–weren’t too happy with the move.

While politicians exercised their series of tubes, Microsoft (MSFT) was busy shadow-tablet boxing. John filed a report about the first Microsoft device designed exclusively to compete with a product Apple (AAPL) doesn’t make. The “Courier,” as the two-page “tablet-book” is called, features some decidedly un-Apple-like interfaces, unless of course you look a little farther back to the days of the Newton.

To finish out the week, Digital Daily took the AllThingsD time machine back to 2003, when Apple was rolling out its revolutionary MMS service. Sometime Friday, iPhone users were suddenly able to share pictures with friends over the air. Unless they already use Flickr, Facebook, or about a zillion other apps that basically do the same thing.

MediaMemo explored its inner, or maybe outer, geek this week, beginning with the Gizmodo annual gallery show. The charity event featured musical Tesla coils, Star Trek props and a “Microsoft Surface”-like computer with a mud-based (not joking) user interface.

Peter continued the browsing theme, reporting that Yahoo and Google were both back in the market for acquisitions. Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt said he had his checkbook open again, now that “the worst is behind us.”

Even if Yahoo and Google are in a buying mood, one particular VC firm isn’t feeling so flush. New York’s Union Square Ventures opted out of the latest round of Twitter fund-raising. Peter hazarded a guess that the now-famous $1 billion valuation may have had something to do with it.

Across town at the Mossberg Solution, Katie gave readers a complete rundown on the Microsoft Zune HD. The iPod-hunting media player is now in its fourth generation. The player got high marks in the style and widgets categories, but still needs a solution to the confusing “points system” purchase interface. The problem with Zune isn’t the player, it seems, but the stuff Zune isn’t connected to.

It’s going to be another week of electro-awesomeness here at AllThingsD. Until then, always remember that you should never turn your back on a cougar. The safest way to escape is to buy it a pomegranate martini and squeeze out the window of the men’s bathroom.