Evidently not. During a post-earnings conference call Monday, Brocade (BRCD) CEO Michael Klayko said the company has not “quietly put itself up for sale” as people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal back in October.

“That is just false,” Klayko said of the rumors, which claimed Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Oracle (ORCL) as possible suitors.

Guess those reports that Brocade had hired Frank Quattrone’s merchant banking boutique Qatalyst to shop it around were a bit off …

“The big steps we’ve been out and after for the last several years in search [have] not been achieved and you’d have to say that the future is speculative. We’ve been asked a lot whether we’re open to consolidating transactions in the area of search. The answer is yes and it’s unlikely that we would be the consolidator.”

– IAC CEO Barry Diller

If Barry Diller is looking for somewhere to unload IAC’s Ask.com search engine, he’d be wise to consider Microsoft–if he doesn’t have that in mind already. Analysts reflecting on Diller’s recent remarks about Ask’s “speculative future” say Microsoft is the most likely buyer if IAC (IACI) is truly serious about dumping the little search engine that couldn’t.

Ask, analysts note, has about four percent of the domestic search market, which would give Microsoft (MSFT) a nice little bump up from the 9.4 percent market share it currently claims. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt that a Microsoft acquisition would undoubtedly mean the end of Ask’s relationship with Google (GOOG).

“Right now, Microsoft wants share so they could pick up those points from Ask,” Colin Gillis, an analyst at Brigantine Advisors, told Reuters. “Plus it has a double impact since Google powers Ask’s paid search.”

And speculative is an apt word for it. With just four percent share of the search market, according to comScore (SCOR), Ask has long been the inveterate fourth-place player in a contest increasingly dominated by Google (GOOG). And though it has certainly tried, Ask just can’t seem to make any headway. It isn’t fighting a losing battle, it’s fighting one that was lost long ago. No surprise then to hear that Diller is tiring of it.

Asked during an earnings call Tuesday if IAC (IACI) would consider selling the search engine, Diller said it most certainly would. “We’ve been asked a lot whether we’re open to consolidating transactions in the area of search. The answer is yes,” he said. “And, it is unlikely that we would be the consolidator.”

Obviously.

So Ask is for sale. The question now is who wants it?

“There is nothing in eBay’s systems and policies which favours or encourages the listing or sale of counterfeit goods,” the Court wrote. “On the contrary, eBay Europe take active steps to prevent or at least minimise such activities. The fact that eBay could take further steps does not affect this….The fact that it would be possible for eBay Europe to do more does not necessarily mean that it is legally obliged to do more, however.”

Another disappointment for L’Oréal, whose legal campaign against eBay (EBAY) has met with similar defeats in France and Belgium (cases in Germany and Spain are still pending). Though the cosmetics giant was able to take solace in the court’s suggestion that eBay could be a bit more proactive in its efforts to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods on its site.

And this is certainly a good time to buy. “To be successful in the long run, Microsoft needs people to green-light the best acquisitions and teams of people with the right skill sets to integrate them,” Jackson writes. “Frankly, Microsoft hasn’t shown it has either of those abilities. Microsoft investors don’t need another expensive aQuantive deal or Facebook investment that smacks of desperation and has questionable long-term value for the company’s shareholders. It needs to take a page out of IBM’s and Oracle’s playbook, though, and start doing deals to grow its top and bottom lines. A big debt issuance, with a skilled acquisition team, and evidence of some exciting growth-related deals could suddenly show the market that this elephant can dance again.”

Shares in the company dropped more than 27 percent percent to $6.48 in premarket trading following reports that Sun’s board rejected a formal acquisition offer by IBM (IBM). After weeks of negotiations, the two companies were thought to be finalizing a deal for about $7 billion. But IBM lowered its offer over the weekend and then withdrew it after Sun balked at the price and terms of the sale. IBM is believed to have originally offered $10 and $11 a share for Sun, but subsequently reduced that bid to $9.40 a share, which was a bit too low for the fading company’s taste.

Seems Sun (JAVA) has quite a bit more in common with Yahoo (YHOO), which notoriously balked at a $44 billion buyout offer from Microsoft (MSFT) last year, than you’d think.

Whether the deal is dead is unclear, but things certainly aren’t looking good–for future negotiations and for Sun, as Sanford Bernstein & Co. analyst Toni Sacconaghi suggested in a research note to clients this morning. “While press reports suggest that the fall-out in discussions may be attributable to brinkmanship, we do think that a collapse in the talks has considerably weakened Sun’s hand, as we see no other likely suitors, and a considerably higher potential for weakened (fiscal year third quarter) results,” he wrote. “… Given the size of the premium and the fact that Sun’s board has presided over a decline in the company’s stock price over the last eight years from over $250/share to less than $5 prior to the acquisition talks being leaked, we believe that (Sun Microsystems) is likely to face significant shareholder unrest, similar to what occurred when Yahoo declined Microsoft’s offer.”

Which means things are about to get ugly–really ugly–for Sun, which doesn’t appear to have any other likely suitors and will almost certainly see its third-quarter results weakened by the doubt it has just instilled in potential customers.

Apparently, everything but Nextel is on the table.

Or, rather, Nextel is still on the table, but no one’s interested in buying it at the $5 billion+ price Sprint’s asking. Said Chris King, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, “I’m not sure they were going to see that kind of valuation, especially in this type of capital markets environment.”

Look out Jerry Yang, Carl Icahn now has one fewer distraction as he prepares to propose his slate of dissident board nominees at Yahoo’s Aug. 1 shareholder meeting.

At its own shareholder meeting yesterday, Biogen (BIIB) investors voted to support management’s preferred board candidates and to reject a slate of directors proposed by Icahn, who’s been squabbling with the company’s leadership in call-and-response SEC filings since its failed effort to sell Biogen last year. With 4% of Biogen’s stock, Icahn had been keen on a sale and accused its board of screwing things up when one didn’t occur.

Biogen shareholders obviously didn’t see things that way and seem to have dealt Icahn a knockout blow. “I don’t think there’s any way in which outside observers could fairly criticize Biogen management for the way they handled the sale process,” said Eric Schmidt, an analyst with Cowen in New York. “They can’t be faulted or praised. They have done the best they can with the cards they were dealt.”

Meanwhile, the slate of dissident directors Icahn’s put together for Yahoo (YHOO) continues to attract support. Said one Yahoo shareholder, “He should go ahead. It’s an indicator of the widespread dissatisfaction of shareholders with Yahoo’s management and the board. If nothing else, (it’s) to keep them honest and nobody’s really sure if Microsoft (MSFT) is completely out of the picture.”

Three days after the New York Times reported that an unnamed Chinese technology company was intent on acquiring Seagate, the hard-drive maker said that wasn’t really the case. “Seagate is not for sale,” said company spokesman Woody Monroy.

Seems the acquisition over which Seagate CEO Bill Watkins said “the U.S. government is freaking out” is largely a hypothetical one. “In general there has been speculation or discussion that there are some Chinese companies that would be interested in buying an American disk-drive company,” Monroy said. “I think Bill [Watkins] was speaking in general [terms to the New York Times]. There’s nothing, from our perspective, more to say about that other than to clarify that Seagate is not for sale. We haven’t had any offers or bids made for Seagate.”