(Bloomberg) — Brocade Communications Systems Inc. climbed the most in more than five years on the Nasdaq, bolstered by reports that the maker of switches for data-storage networks is seeking a suitor.

Brocade is considering a sale, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News today. Hewlett-Packard Co. and Oracle Corp. may be interested, said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. Brocade spokesman Stuart Marks said the company doesn’t comment on speculation.

U.S. technology companies have announced more than $12 billion in acquisitions in the past two weeks. Brocade, which specializes in networks that connect data centers, has become a target as companies’ needs for storage capacity surge, said Jason Ader, an analyst at William Blair & Co. in Boston.

“Data centers are getting bigger and bigger,” said Ader, who rates the shares “market perform” and doesn’t own any. “The strategic need for the network to be very robust and very low delay and just super fast is probably greater than it’s ever been.”

Juniper Networks Inc., the second-biggest maker of network equipment, may be interested in Brocade, Nikos Theodosopoulos, a New York-based analyst with UBS AG, said in a note today to investors. International Business Machines Corp. sells Juniper and Brocade equipment under its own brand name. Melanie Branon, a Juniper spokeswoman, didn’t immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

Shares Jump

Brocade, based in San Jose, California, rose $1.44, or 19 percent, to $9.09 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading, the most since August 2004. The increase helped push Brocade’s market value to $3.8 billion.

David Shane, a spokesman for Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard, declined to comment. Oracle spokeswoman Karen Tillman didn’t return calls seeking comment.

Brocade’s sales almost doubled in the two years since 2006 as Chief Executive Officer Michael Klayko built out the business with acquisitions, including the $2.6 billion purchase of Foundry Networks Inc. last year.

Last month, Brocade forecast sales for the year ending in October 2010 of as much as $2.45 billion, anticipating customers will make network upgrades they had delayed during the economic slump. Analysts on average predict $2.27 billion, according to a Bloomberg survey.

Spending Patterns

The company said customers probably will resume “normal” spending patterns in the second half of 2010. In August, Brocade posted a third-quarter loss on revenue growth of 35 percent to $493.3 million, less than the $504.1 million analysts had predicted on average.

Brocade, the world’s biggest maker of switches for data- storage networks, competes with Cisco Systems Inc. Cisco, the world’s largest maker of networking equipment, is expanding into the server market and taking on Hewlett-Packard and IBM. That may make Brocade a more attractive target as those companies look to shore up their networking businesses, Ader said.

“Cisco historically has been the dominant networking vendor, and now Cisco is getting into the server market,” Ader said. “H-P, IBM and in some cases Oracle are feeling pretty threatened.”

Brocade counted both Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems Inc. as customers in its latest fiscal year. Oracle, based in Redwood City, California, is in the process of buying Sun.

Cisco agreed to buy Tandberg ASA for about $3 billion last week to expand its line of video-conferencing products. Computer maker Dell Inc. agreed to buy Perot Systems Corp. for $3.9 billion in September, while Xerox Corp. made a $5.6 billion cash-and-stock offer for Affiliated Computer Systems Inc.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier today that Brocade may put itself on the block.

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