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?

For Sprint, which is suffering from declining revenue and a thinning subscriber base, the move is a quick-and-dirty way of cutting costs and freeing up resources to focus on innovation and remedying the real and perceived issues with its services.

“This is about improving our customer experience,” Steve Elfman, head of Sprint’s network operations, said during a conference call this morning. “While we get the benefit of Ericsson’s expertise…we can focus our attention on bringing great devices, great services, great applications to them….We’ll benefit from the current scale and efficiency and expertise of Ericsson, and this will keep improving over time.”

How quickly things changed. By 2007, Davidson had been joined by 11 other lobbyists, among them a former high-ranking Justice Department antitrust lawyer. And now, two years later, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been named by President Obama to his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. In that role he’ll work with a group of distinguished academics and executives–a group that, incidentally, includes Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft (MSFT)–to help the administration “formulate policy in the many areas where understanding of science, technology, and innovation is key to strengthening our economy and forming policy that works for the American people.”

Schmidt’s appointment isn’t all that surprising. He served as an informal adviser to Obama during his campaign and he’s a smart guy who’s got some strong opinions about network neutrality, next-generation broadband, and intellectual property–issues that figure high on the president’s tech agenda. Still, it’s one more indication–and the biggest one yet–that Google has become firmly part of the Washington establishment.

Whether that is a true vote of confidence remains to be seen. Certainly, Yahoo (YHOO) made similar remarks about Jerry Yang during its ill-starred negotiations with Microsoft (MSFT), and we all know how that worked out for him…

“We are preconfigured for the downturn.”

– Sun CEO Jon Schwartz, Oct. 13, 2008

Looks like Sun is “aligning its business with the global economic climate” again… The company will sack 1,500 employees this week, a company spokesperson confirmed to Digital Daily. The move is part of the restructuring plan Sun announced last November and will affect “all functions, geographies and levels.”

In January, Sun confirmed that it had laid off 1,300 employees as part of its November plan to cut 18 percent of its workforce. With this latest round of cuts, that number is pushing toward 3,000.

News of cuts comes as acquisition talks between IBM (IBM) and Sun (JAVA) continue, suggesting perhaps that IBM prefers its acquisition targets lean…

Sun’s statement on the matter in full:

Sun continues to make important choices to streamline operations and align resources to best address market opportunity and position the company for improved financial performance and long term growth. In November 2008, Sun announced a series of changes designed to align its cost model with the global economy and accelerate the introduction of compelling open source innovations. As part of that effort Sun announced a global workforce reduction of approximately 5,000 to 6,000 employees, representing approximately 15% to 18% of the Company’s global workforce. In January, layoff notifications were given to approximately 1,300 employees as part of that action.

This week, Sun can confirm that notifications are being given to approximately 1,500 as part of this effort.  Reductions are being made across all levels, including vice presidents and directors. Sun remains committed to its strategy with a consistent focus on providing innovations that enable customers to address their business needs. We continue to see great opportunities for our technologies globally and are focused on our customers and partners.

We will continue to provide updates on our progress against the workforce reduction plan as they come available.

There are some customers which we chose not to serve. We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that. But we can continue to deliver greater and greater value to those customers that we choose to serve. And there’s a lot of them. We’ve seen great success by focusing on certain segments of the market and not trying to be everything to everybody. So I think you can expect us to stick with that winning strategy and continue to try to add more and more value to those products in those customer bases we choose to serve.”

– Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Oct. 2008

Perhaps Macworld Expo 2009 will have its “one more thing” after all.

In a note to clients this morning, Ezra Gottheil of Technology Business Research speculates that Apple (AAPL) will indeed launch a new product category at Macworld in early January. A netbook designed to leverage Apple’s design prowess and its online delivery system as well. “[The device] will provide Web access, email, media playing, and essential applications at a single low price,” Gottheil writes. “Computer beginners will be able to start using it quickly and easily. Users will have fewer questions, problems, conflicts and security breaches, as the device will be less intimidating than both PCs and Macs. As with the iPhone, iTunes and the App Store will offer an array of content, applications and games. As with the iPhone, the software can be rebuilt from the App Store. With an optional online backup service, the entire device can be restored…. Because all applications are delivered through the iTunes App Store, Apple will maintain sustained relationships with users, making it easier to upsell and cross-sell to existing customers. TBR believes Apple will make online services like MobileMe increasingly attractive to all customers, but purchasers of the new Apple device may find its simplicity especially appealing.”

Now, I know Gottheil’s the guy who said “Apple doesn’t need Jobs anymore”–blasphemy! But the scenario he lays out above makes quite a bit of sense, doesn’t it?

If such a device is indeed uncrated at Macworld, Gottheil expects it will arrive at market around midyear at prices beginning at $599–$99 more than the $500 computer Apple CEO Steve Jobs claims the company doesn’t know how to make….

This latest swing of the ax brings total job cuts at Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) to about 22,500 since the 2006 merger that created it. And though the company will be leaner and meaner for it, that new found agility won’t count for much without a shift in business strategy bold enough to reverse the brutal reduction in market share and market capitalization Alcatel-Lucent has suffered. And an oblique and, frankly, baffling mention of Web 2.0, does not a business strategy make.

Alcatel-Lucent’s plan is to “combine the trusted capabilities of the network environment with the creative communications services of the Web (Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and beyond).” What the hell does that mean?

Yes, the SAAS enterprise applications vendor loves everyone, but none more than Google (GOOG). This morning, Salesforce (CRM) expanded its alliance with the search behemoth, linking its Force.com online development platform to Google’s App Engine. The move essentially allows consumer applications built on Google App Engine to call on data stored in Force.com. And that heralds more robust cloud computing applications, more–and better–alternatives to Microsoft’s (MSFT) core business applications, which are only just now adapted for the cloud.