U.S. stock futures are slightly higher this morning, as investors await earnings reports from many companies and economic data on weekly jobless claims. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 9 points to 11,945, while those for the S&P 500 rose 0.90 point to 1,295. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 rose 4.50 points to 2,323.

Abroad, positive sentiment ruled the European markets today. While STOXX Europe 600 Index has gained 0.25%, London's FTSE 100 Index moved up 0.22%.

Asian markets ended mostly higher, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average adding 0.74%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 moving down 0.04% and China's Shanghai Composite gaining 1.49%.

Piper Jaffray is raising its price target on shares of Informatica (INFA) to $40 from $37 and has a neutral rating on its shares. Shares of INFA gained $1.39 yesterday to close at $43.79, a gain of 3.28%.

"With the uber-ambitious Ellison and Hurd now paired, I think the safe bet is we're going so see Oracle (ORCL) make some major moves (yes, probably more than one major acquisition)," suggests tech sector expert Paul McWilliams.

The editor of Next Inning explains, "After all, even without Hurd at his side, Oracle founder, Larry Ellison has been an aggressive buyer and now with Hurd on board I think the appetite could become ravenous.

"I think its probably a good idea to start thinking about what Oracle might do next.

The earnings crunch begins in earnest this coming week, with companies from Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) and PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP) to Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) and Harley-Davidson Inc. (NYSE: HOG) scheduled to report results for the quarter just ended. But with the ongoing turmoil in the markets, much attention is on the tech and financial sectors. This week will provide plenty to mull over on both counts.

Wall Street expectations for tech stocks are fairly optimistic. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial are looking for chip maker Altera Corp. (NASDAQ: ALTR) and software/service company iGate Corp. (NASDAQ: IGTE) to be the sector's biggest earnings gainers of the week. Altera is expected to report earnings of 30 cents per share (up 33.3% from a year ago) on revenue of $355.1 million. Altera had previously forecast flat sales for the quarter, and shares fell to a 52-week low last week. iGate is expected to report earnings of 14 cents per share (up 42.9%) on revenue of $55.6 million. India-based iGate recently spun off its Mastech consulting services. Shares are down 45.0% in the past three months, and also reached a new 52-week low last week.

San Jose-based Novellus Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: NVLS), on the other hand, is expected to report that net income tumbled 90.4% from a year ago to 4 cents per share, on revenue of $245.6 million. Novellus fell to a 52-week low early last week, and shares are down 44.5% year to date.

With Corporate America awash in data, things have been nice for Informatica Corporation (Nasdaq: INFA), which is a data integration software company. The customer base is solid and relatively stable.

In fact, the company recently posted its Q1 results, with profits up 23% to $11.2 million or $0.12 per share. Revenues increased 19% to $103.7 million and license revenues came to $44.2 million.

But, to maintain its competitive strength, Informatica needs to expand its product edge. To this end, the company agreed to purchase Identity Systems, which is a division of Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK).

It's been an interesting week for me; that is, two global tech companies -- International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) and SAP AG (ADR) (NYSE:SAP) -- are concerned about my abilities.

OK, first I got an email from one of SAP's communications vice presidents, regarding a column I wrote titled, "SAP Still Not Serious About M & A."

He wrote: "You know, with a little research, the readers of the Motley Fool might have had a more clear picture about SAP's strategy on acquisitions, and how that successful strategy has differentiated itself from the so-called pressure you seem to think that Oracle is putting on SAP. The number of assumptions (many wrong) about SAP and Oracle in your column deserve some balance so that your readers are getting an accurate assessment of the market, and the relative performance of SAP (16 quarters of organic growth) and Oracle (questionable).... Your readers deserve some balance and some accuracy about SAP and Oracle, lest folks wonder who really is "the fool."

Ouch! Yes, it is true that I've been bullish on Oracle and bearish on SAP. For the year, Oracle is up nearly 50% and SAP is up about 11%. I responded to him and emailed: "Thanks for calling me a fool."

His response:

This week, I'm in San Francisco.  I've been at a conference for SalesForce.com (NYSE: CRM), as well as for  Informatica (Nasdaq: INFA).

Well, interestingly enough, a topic of conversation is Google and its move into the corporate market (especially corporate search).

The buzz is that Google has over 1 million CPUS and is the biggest buyer of electricity in California.  Basically, Google is building the ultimate Web services platform -- which can host both consumer and corporate applications.

For example, at the Salesforce.com conference, the company's CEO, Marc Benioff, mentioned he is thinking of moving his corporate email to GMail.  This is a possibility since Google has a new system that allows companies to have web-based email using their own domain names.  You can check it out at www.google.com/hosted.

But the corporate market can be tricky. For example, at the Salesforce.com conference, David Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google's Enterprise business unit, gave a presentation of his solutions. Problem?  Well, he couldn't seem to log in. After a couple minutes, he then went into a slide show presentation.

Actually, I had a chance to talk to James Markarian, who is the CTO at Informatica.  He has spent his career dealing with the complexities of corporate IT environments. He thinks the transition for Google into corporate search will be a challenge.

First of all, security is absolutely critical.  Corporate data has much more confidential information than the consumer Web.  There are also new regulations that have severe consequences, such as Sarbanes-Oxley.

There is something else: corporate data is often associated with an application. For example, suppose you are searching for HR information. Well, a search engine will need to deal with a variety of ERP systems, such as for Oracle, SAP and so on.

In other words, to be successful, Google will need to partner with many firms – as well as deal with the intricacies of different solutions.

This is something that Informatica specializes in. And, it has spent 15 years dealing with these issues.

So, in the case of Google, its conquering of corporate America is a lofty goal – but is likely to be a marathon not a sprint.