"We weren't trying to send a signal," he said. "We don't expect to consider something else."
Fiorina could reduce the purchase price for Compaq or the companies might find a way to spin off the PCs, said Bear Stearns & Co analyst Andy Neff, who in January had said Hewlett-Packard would buy Compaq and to avoid both stocks.
"Deals get restructured all the time," Neff said. "If a deal is less bad, maybe that's good. Maybe they can make something work."
Some shareholders had already been pushing H-P to abandon PCs, in favor of focusing attention on its more-profitable printer unit.
Fiorina has said she won't consider getting rid of PCs because they help sell other products.
"Customers combine desktop PC purchases with other purchases," Fiorina said in an October interview. "There's value in the PC business."
Even if H-P spun off PCs, that may not convince wary shareholders. They wonder if a separate PC division could survive and still say that adding Compaq's PC sales is the wrong strategy.
"It's not clear to me what would be a better deal," said Richard Wilk, director of global investments at PanAgora Asset Management Inc., which owns Compaq shares.
"Trying to merge these two organizations would be difficult."
Lowering the price won't help either, investors said.
"Compaq is already thinking it might walk away," said Rath. "If you lower the price, the deal breaks up."
Compaq board member Perkins said renegotiating the deal wouldn't convince H-P family members anyway. Analysts agreed.
"I don't think it's ever going to convince the families," said Tom Burnett, president of Merger Insight. "You're never going to win over that 18 percent."
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