This article originally appeared on Real Money on Oct. 31, 2016.

Though the most headline-grabbing tech acquisitions of 2016 have happened in other fields such as social media and semiconductors, the year has also seen the pace of M&A activity for enterprise hardware and software firms accelerate from 2015's already-rapid rate. And conditions still look good for continued deal activity.

Networking hardware vendor Brocade Communications (BRCD) , which supplies public and private data centers, might be the next enterprise firm to be acquired. Bloomberg reported on Monday that Brocade is...