Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of storage and networking gear builder Brocade Communications Systems (Nasdaq: BRCD) jumped as much as 11.7% on about average volume.

So what: In the doldrums between earnings seasons, all manner of industry conferences give executives a fine platform to hawk their plans and visions. Today, newly appointed CFO Dan Fairfax gave a spirited spiel at one conference; tomorrow, he'll go to another one.

Now what: Sadly, I can't access Fairfax's webcast because of technical difficulties, but here's what I've gathered from third-party sources. Brocade appears to have used that stage to pump a recently launched portfolio of high-speed Ethernet switches. The new hardware appears to be aimed directly at the cloud-computing space, where Brocade partners up with storage titan EMC (NYSE: EMC) and virtual-computing innovator VMware (NYSE: VMW). Keep Brocade on your watchlist, and you'll learn more about this potentially exciting development as it unfolds. Also, brush up on cloud computing by watching this totally free video report on that market.

Add Brocade Communications Systems to My Watchlist.