Tis the season for deal speculation, with Tom Foremski quoting sources who say that Salesforce has approached Oracle “to gauge if there is any interest in a sale at $75 a share.”

If Oracle did take the deal, it would value Salesforce at just shy of $9 billion.

Michael wrote in June 2007 that Saleforce was “acquisition bait,” although at the time the rumors were pointing to a deal with Google. That didn’t happen, although Google and Salesforce did end up partnering for online ad sales.

Salesforce’s stock has weathered the stock market downturn fairly well, closing at $50.86 Friday, down from a peak of $64 in December, however a deal at $75 a share is still down on speculation of a deal at $80-$85 a share last year.

See our previous Salesforce coverage here.