By MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Shares of Brocade Communications Systems Inc. jumped as much as 15% after a report that the data-storage company has put itself up for sale.

The Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter,” reported Monday that Brocade is getting looks from other large technology companies such as Hewlett-Packard Co. The Journal is a sister publication of MarketWatch.

Shares of Brocade shot up to $8.78 in premarket trades, compared to Friday’s closing price of $7.65.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company sells equipment that connects corporate networks to data-storage centers where information is stored. The acquisition of Brocade’s business could help potential buyers such as HP or Oracle Corp. broaden their range of products as competition among large technology companies intensifies.

In the past month, for example, Dell Inc. has agreed to buy Perot Systems Corp. for almost $4 billion and Xerox Inc. struck a deal to buy Affiliated Computer Services for nearly $6.4 billion.

Their goal: to sell more computer and other technology services to corporate customers, many of which are reducing or eliminating costly in-house staff in favor of outside contractors.

The Journal report, however, said no deal for Brocade is imminent.

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