Walter Price Jr., a portfolio manager for Allianz's RCM Global Capital Management, is a Riverbed shareholder. He thinks that the trend toward more outsourced computing bodes well for communications concerns like Riverbed. His stock-price target is 29, based on his 2010 earnings projection of $1 a share, up from the consensus estimate of 60 cents for 2009. Riverbed was trading around 21 last week.

Juniper also is a potential buyer of Brocade. If the networking company wants to remain independent and continue to slug it out with Cisco, it will need to bulk up. Juniper was interested in buying Brocade before Brocade acquired Foundry, a former competitor, Male says. Now, the former Foundry networking business might create redundancies for Juniper. Because of the storage-networking combination, Brocade's bankers put the company up for sale in the press to stir interest among private-equity concerns. Brocade might fetch more if the company were sold in parts, according to Male.

Another takeover candidate, F5 Networks, which has a market valuation of $3.8 billion, sells products that improve the functionality of enterprises using virtualization technology. Its offerings include software that balances the load of activity on computer servers used by Web farms, big clusters of servers that are outsourced to corporate customers. Male suggests that HP, Juniper Networks and possibly IBM, Dell and NEC could be interested in F5. F5 is a "cheaper stock" than Riverbed because revenue growth has fallen during the recession, Price says. But he isn't worried. The portfolio manager says that transaction volume at online sites has fallen as much as 50%, which means Web farms don't need to increase capacity. Price thinks the stock is misunderstood and that revenue will bounce back as online commerce rebounds with the broader economy. "It just got hit hard by the recession," Price says. "I don't understand why this company is still public."

Juniper, which makes switches, routers and other networking gear, is unique in that it could be a buyer or a seller. Price likes Juniper. "I wouldn't own a stock for the fact that it is going to get bought, but I think that it is quite possible," he told Barron's. "I'm actually surprised that it hasn't happened." Price thinks Juniper's earnings could rise to $1.05 a share in 2010 from an estimated 80 cents in 2009 as corporate tech spending starts to recover. His target is 30, roughly 10% above recent levels.

Storage-industry leader EMC is also mentioned as a potential merger candidate, but so far its chief executive, Joe Tucci, has shown little interest. There has been recent speculation that EMC is planning to form a joint venture with Cisco, but there has been no confirmation by either company. Such talk has fueled additional chatter that the two companies would make an attractive couple. Many analysts take the long view that storage won't remain an independent industry, predicting that EMC could merge with somebody over time. EMC's majority stake in virtualization-software darling VMware (VMW) makes the storage giant even more attractive -- and more expensive. EMC's market valuation is about $35 billion. Shares traded last week at around 18. The company is expected to earn 88 cents a share in 2009, down from $1 a year ago.

Also on acquisition radar screens is CommVault Systems (CVLT). Both NetApp and Dell are rumored to be interested in this smallish company, with a market cap of around $860 million. CommVault boasts a compelling mix of back-up storage, data protection and de-duplication applications (or storage technology that saves space because it doesn't duplicate existing data). In fact, the de-duplication business is especially attractive to NetApp now that it has been outbid by EMC for Data Domain, which specializes in de-duplication. "Dell resells a lot of CommVault products today," says Male, suggesting why Dell might bid for the company. HP is also a possible suitor, he adds. CommVault could earn 64 cents a share in fiscal year 2010 (March). Shares traded around 21 last week.

A potential "tuck-in" storage acquisition would be 3Par (PAR), a pioneer in storage utility known as "thin provisioning," which expands data capacity on corporate storage systems. Also on the smallish side, with a market cap around $713 million, 3Par could fit well with companies already in the enterprise-storage space, such as HP and Japan's Fujitsu, Male says. NetApp also might be interested in 3Par as a way to garner more access to enterprise customers, he says. Shares of 3Par, which is expected to earn six cents a share this fiscal year, traded around 12 last week.

Seligman Technology Group analyst Reema Shah is a fan of BMC. "It is still being valued as a value stock" because of "skepticism around margin expansion," Shah says. But she expects margins to improve to at least 38% in 2010 from around 33% in June 2009. Most important, BMC stands to win big if Cisco's server products take off; it will get paid licensing fees for BMC Blade-Logic software used in the servers, she explains. "It could be a big opportunity next year," Shah says. Her price target is in the high 40's based on her fiscal year 2010 earnings estimate of $2.70 a share. Shares traded last week around 37.