In the last few days there has been increased speculation whether Hewlett-Packard could be taken over by its oftentimes rival and sometime’s enemy: Oracle (News - Alert).

A main source for floating the idea was a New York Post story this weekend, following a 20 percent drop in HP’s stock price last week. Investors reacted negatively to news that HP will buy Autonomy (News - Alert), a software company, and move away from several key technology sectors, such as spinning off its PC business. Shares of HP lost $12.3 billion at the end of last week’s trading.

As a result, HP was put in a “vulnerable position” and could become a “target” for takeover by Oracle, The Post reported. HP paid 10 times revenue, (over $10 billion) for Autonomy, The Post noted.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, and former HP CEO Mark Hurd (who was pressured out of the company before becoming Oracle co-president,) reportedly wants a takeover of HP. One source told The Post such a move could happen early in 2012.

Meanwhile, Wells Fargo (News - Alert) analyst Jayson Maynard said he could see why Oracle would be interested in HP.

“We definitely think Oracle would be interested at the right price given HP’s enterprise assets, Mark Hurd’s experience, and the obvious turmoil at the company,” Maynard said in a research note quoted by Forbes.com. “If Oracle could grab the just enterprise business, we think it would be a huge benefit, as it would add significant account coverage, server and storage hardware depth, unique software assets (Mercury, Open View, Opsware etc.), a better competitive position against IBM (News - Alert), and call options in product areas like networking and IT services.”

But given the “clear animosity” between the companies, a possible takeover will likely be hostile, “which could easily take a year or more to close,” Maynard said.

From his vantage point, Forbes’ Eric Savitz said, “The biggest question is here is whether even mighty Oracle could pull off a deal of this size.” He noted that the HP market cap is about $50 billion and Oracle has under $29 billion in cash.

The deal would likely lead to antitrust issues since both Oracle and HP sell servers, Savitz added.

Servers are the area where HP ranks first among all companies, according to a report from TMCnet.

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