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?

Answer: probably not all that bad. As Yankee Group analyst Joshua Martin notes, Chrome is hardly a Windows killer. “The Chrome OS isn’t the final bullet in the war between Google and Microsoft, rather it’s merely a shot across the bow,” Martin wrote in a note to clients. “Google’s targeting of netbooks will reduce Window’s market share of this high growth category, but the effect will only be slightly greater than the introduction of Linux-based netbooks.”

In other words, Chrome will prove more a nagging irritant to Microsoft (MSFT) than anything else–at least initially. And while it will presumably increase the use of Google’s (GOOG) Web services and applications, it’s not going to be unseating Windows, the darling of enterprise, anytime soon.

Writes Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay: “Although the Chrome OS will initially be released for netbooks, Google indicated that it could eventually be used to power full-size desktop systems. However, it is unclear how much traction Google could gain in this market, as the Chrome OS would presumably not be compatible with Windows based programs. Instead, Google would need to rely on people to more fully adopt web-based services (a long-dated proposition), or for software developers to port their applications over to Chrome OS.”

And if that’s the case, it’s going to be a long time before we see Windows application compatibility, which is key to this particular battle. Until then, Chrome OS will perform about as well as Linux has in the netbook market, which is to say, not well at all. “It will take quite a long time for Google to become a competitor to Microsoft,” said Gartner analyst Michael Silver. “In the enterprise, for example, over 70% of the applications used require Windows. And even at home, things like personal finance still require Windows. So, while I think this is a longer-term threat to Microsoft, it’s definitely not in the short term.”

Answer: probably not all that bad. As Yankee Group analyst Joshua Martin notes, Chrome is hardly a Windows killer. “The Chrome OS isn’t the final bullet in the war between Google and Microsoft, rather it’s merely a shot across the bow,” Martin wrote in a note to clients. “Google’s targeting of netbooks will reduce Window’s market share of this high growth category, but the effect will only be slightly greater than the introduction of Linux-based netbooks.”

In other words, Chrome will prove more a nagging irritant to Microsoft (MSFT) than anything else–at least initially. And while it will presumably increase the use of Google’s (GOOG) Web services and applications, it’s not going to be unseating Windows, the darling of enterprise, anytime soon.

Writes Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay: “Although the Chrome OS will initially be released for netbooks, Google indicated that it could eventually be used to power full-size desktop systems. However, it is unclear how much traction Google could gain in this market, as the Chrome OS would presumably not be compatible with Windows based programs. Instead, Google would need to rely on people to more fully adopt web-based services (a long-dated proposition), or for software developers to port their applications over to Chrome OS.”

And if that’s the case, it’s going to be a long time before we see Windows application compatibility, which is key to this particular battle. Until then, Chrome OS will perform about as well as Linux has in the netbook market, which is to say, not well at all. “It will take quite a long time for Google to become a competitor to Microsoft,” said Gartner analyst Michael Silver. “In the enterprise, for example, over 70% of the applications used require Windows. And even at home, things like personal finance still require Windows. So, while I think this is a longer-term threat to Microsoft, it’s definitely not in the short term.”

Well-known venture capitalist and blogger Fred Wilson will be at Google Wednesday to give a talk about “disruptive industries.”

The Googlers should be mighty interested given that the object of their current annoyance and desire, Twitter, is one of the hottest start-up investments of late for Wilson’s Union Square Ventures.

Before Google (GOOG) execs–you know who you are, David Lawee and Marissa Mayer–try to hand over a big bag of money to Wilson to stop the microblogging madness, Wilson asked readers in a post to help him improve the talk.

Here is his speech deck and the description of the talk (a common occurrence at Google’s Silicon Valley campus, by the way):

Fred will be talking about “disruptive industries.” Media/entertainment has taken the brunt of the disruptive force of the Internet and Internet technology but that’s just the start. What industries are next? Energy, education, consumer finance, and health care all seem ripe. What are those industries going to look like in 20 years, 40 years, 60 years?