Computer firms get defensive as stock prices dive.

This summer's clobbering of computer stocks on Wall Street has not spared Los Angeles companies.

Shares of software publishers Quarterdeck Office Systems and Retix, for instance, at press time last week had skidded 80 percent and 45 percent, respectively, from their 52-week highs. And distributor Merisel Inc.'s stock was off 50 percent from its high.

Quarterdeck responded this month by adopting a poison-pill-type "stockholder fights" plan to ward off unwanted takeover proposals.

Faced with the possibility of being bought out at dirt-cheap prices, other public companies too are likely considering anti-takeover measures or buying back some of their stock to boost share prices, said industry analysts last week.

"The probability of any (share-value moves) has increased, with the collapse in a lot of computer stock prices," surmised Tom Galvin, vice president of Forstmann-Left Associates in New York.

"I think management is going to have to do something, or lose control of their companies at bargain-basement prices," said Wendy Feldman, vice president of "special situations" (mergers & acquisitions) for Kemper Securities Inc. in Los Angeles.

"Any company that's seen its share price drop precipitously will put in some type of anti-takeover measure," predicted Bruce Lupatkin, managing director of technology research at Hambrecht & Quist in San Francisco.

Among Los Angeles' larger computer companies, however, only Quarterdeck had made a recent share-value move at press time last week. Logicon Inc. instituted a buyback program for about 8 percent of its stock in April, and a few companies have standing programs they could put into motion quickly.

As of last week, there were no unsolicited buyout offers pending at any of L.A.'s largest publicly traded computer companies, officials said. (In the June proxy of software company MacNeal-Schwendler Corp., investment group Brinson Holdings Inc. appeared as a new stockholder of 7.5 percent shares outstanding.)

Managements probably believe they have better uses for their cash than buying back stock, such as acquiring other computer companies, said analysts.

"I wouldn't be surprised if within the corporate board rooms there are more conversations going on now, regarding corporate acquisitions and mergers, than one year ago," said Galvin.

Nevertheless, analysts note that significant barriers exist to buyouts. Also, not all L.A. computer companies have been slaughtered on Wall Street.

L.A.'s largest computer company that's publicly traded is Computer Sciences, down only 25 percent from its 52-week high. The $2.16 billion-in-revenues corporation garners all of its revenues from services. Logicon Inc. posted all its $299 million in revenues last year from services, and its stock is off only 30 percent.

Services generally have avoided the cutthroat pricing that plagues hardware and software products, which are increasingly treated as commodities by the marketplace, despite their distinctiveness or innovations.

"We're not subject to the 'commodity' pricing of the manufacturers," said Computer Sciences spokesman Bill Lackey.

Investors have kicked several of those companies in the teeth, sometimes after they merely predicted they would not earn as much as Wall Street was predicting.

Merisel's stock fell $3.125 a share to $8 on Aug. 4 when company officials told analysts they expected third-quarter earnings per share to come in at 12 cents to 15 cents, vs. 16 cents to 18 cents anticipated by analysts. A worse clobbering hit Quarterdeck when it announced July 1 that second-quarter earnings would be far smaller than expectations: its stock was halved that day to $5.63 a share.

"We were one of the first to announce (reduced profits), so we were hit somewhat hard," explained Quarterdeck Vice President of Finance Ronald Hammond.

The skittishness was national. And it hit blue chips. Industry giant HewlettPackard Co. made a similar profits announcement Aug. 7 and investors again stampeded. HP shares fell 18 percent that day.

Of course, perceptions of product failings or distinctions play strongly into computer stock prices, which are volatile by nature. For instance, Quarterdeck had to contend with the releases of rival software, Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 3.1 and IBM's OS/2 2.0, during its second quarter.

Admittedly, not all product-intensive companies' stocks have been hammered. Disk-drive maker Micropolis Corp., for instance, is down only about 20 percent from its high.

But Micropolis and most other hardware makers are under severe price pressure. Lupatkin predicted brand-name microcomputer hardware makers will launch another round of price cuts this fall, and that software publishers may do likewise in the December quarter.

Also bedeviling product-intensive companies is the move away from giant mainframe computers -- the mainstay of insurance companies and banks -- to networks of workstations.

Marketwide uncertainty is apparently buffeting most computer stocks, and analysts are cautious about predicting the market's bottom.

"There are so many cross currents impacting the industry, you don't really know where the bottom is," said Lupatkin.

Even so, bottom-fishing, buybacks or tender offers may not boost share prices as well as cutting recurring costs, the medicine Lupatkin recommends: "You fire a bunch of people and change your distribution strategy."

MacNeal-Schwendler reorganized last year. With sales sputtering from the defense-industry slowdown and the recession, it cut 16 percent of staff and revamped staff assignments.

Also, despite the landmark purchase of $235 million-in-revenues Ashton-Tate Corp. by software rival Borland International last year, the climate for takeovers is less amenable in the 1990s than during the 1980s. And the assets of computer stocks are harder to value than oil in the ground, for instance.

Senior managers are often key to a company's future, "and you can scare them off" with a takeover, noted Galvin.