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Stocks were poised for a higher open on Friday as an upbeat outlook from Oracle boosts technology stocks.

Futures on major U.S. stock indices continued to point to a higher opening on Friday after government data showed that US economic activity grew at a 3.1 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter.

Shares of Oracle Corp rose 5 percent on Friday, a day after the world's third-largest software maker forecast solid sales of new business software, signaling strength against Hewlett-Packard and IBM in data center and cloud computing businesses.

The top pre-market NASDAQ Stock Market gainers are: Biostar Pharmaceuticals, Wet Seal, Zalicus, Oracle, and JetBlue Airways. The top pre-market NASDAQ Stock Market losers are: China Finance Online, Research In Motion, Acacia Research, Universal Display, XOMA, and Netflix.

Stock index futures rose on Friday, supported by technology shares after Oracle gave an upbeat forecast.

The top after-market NASDAQ Stock Market gainers are: Body Central, THQ, Wet Seal, Alkermes, and Oracle. The top after-market NASDAQ Stock Market losers are: Gen-Probe, Research In Motion, Move, Acacia Research, and China Finance Online.

Oracle Corp forecast a 4 to 14 percent rise in sales of new software this quarter and hiked its dividend by a fifth, fueling hopes that a global resurgence in technology spending remains intact.

Oracle Corp beat Wall Street forecasts and raised its dividend 20 percent on Thursday, as the business software maker capitalized on resurgent spending on technology.

Former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd wants to keep a letter that he says describes his relationship with a contractor under seal.

Oracle Corp is poised to provide fresh evidence of the upward curve of technology spending on Thursday, and to detail its battle plan against emerging competitor Hewlett-Packard Co as the two tech giants vie to lead the datacenter revolution.

ON Semiconductor recently purchased Sanyo Semiconductor ($1.1 billion in annual revenues) and thus has several thousand employees and several fabs in Japan.

Last week's earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan and its aftermath in the form of nuclear reactor crisis present a near-term disruption for a handful of software companies that have exposure to the region.

Last week's earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan and its aftermath in the form of nuclear reactor crisis present a near-term disruption for a handful of software companies that have exposure to the region.

Last week's earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan and its aftermath in the form of nuclear reactor crisis present a near-term disruption for a handful of software companies that have exposure to the region.

Léo Apotheker, the Chief Executive Officer of PC giant Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), is expected to hold an investor briefing on March 14 in San Francisco where he may unveil his much anticipated vision for HP.

Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) could be an attractive acquisition target for companies, including Broadcom Corp. and Oracle.

Access to the professional networking site LinkedIn was disrupted in China on Thursday, following online calls on other sites for gatherings inspired by protests against authoritarian regimes across the Middle East.

Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs, who is rumored to have been fighting terminal cancer, attended a meeting of tech honchos with President Barack Obama in the outskirts of San Francisco City on Thursday.

Larry Ellison, an American business magnate, co-founder and chief executive officer of Oracle Corporation, has bought the 249-acre estate that once belonged to Yellowstone Club founders Tim and Edra Blixseth called Porcupine Creek in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

The companies whose shares are moving in pre-market trade on Friday are: Big Lots, Tyco International, Tesoro, Ford Motor, Oracle, Expedia, Cephalon, Dean Foods and Kraft Foods.

Fujitsu Ltd and Oracle Corp plan to jointly develop next-generation Unix servers and expand their decades-old partnership to include a new distribution agreement, the companies said on Wednesday, as they battle to keep up with market leader IBM.

A possible management shake-up in the Microsoft camp is due to throw up senior product executives with engineering muscle at the top to tackle the might of Apple and Google in the smartphone, tablets and cloud domains.

ThinkEquity has outlined its top technology stock picks for 2011. The stocks include AMD, Spansion, Entropic, Micron Technology, Nvidia, Aruba Networks, Mellanox, Stec, Google and Priceline.

Amazon Web Services LLC plans to make Oracle Database 11g available through Amazon Relational Database Service during the second quarter of 2011.

A federal judge in California has allowed a committee of Hewlett-Packard's directors to begin a probe into the circumstances culminating in Mark Hurd's departure from the company.

LinkedIn Corp announced plans to go public this year in what could be a test of investor appetite for social networking websites ahead of a highly anticipated Facebook offering.

Silicon Valley billionaire, Tom Siebel, founder of CRM vendor Siebel Systems, has sold his 62,000-acre Montana cattle ranch for $45 million.

Facebook founding president Sean Parker has yet again hit out against the movie 'The Social Network' for portraying him as a morally reprehensible human being.

HP is looking to move in a new direction by parting ways with Mark Hurd's supporters on its board of directors.