TouchStone Software Corp. Logs Sharply Improved Results in the 3rd Quarter

HUNTINGTON BEACH — TouchStone Software Corp., which saw the price of its stock slide 33% this week after an analyst lowered her expectations for the company’s performance in the fourth quarter, nonetheless posted sharply improved third-quarter results Thursday.

Buoyed by sales of a program linked to the Windows 95 operating system, TouchStone reported quarterly earnings of $479,000, or 7 cents per share, more than double the $197,200, or 4 cents per share, in the corresponding three-month period a year earlier. Sales rose 113% to $3.52 million from $1.65 million.

For its nine-month period, the company reported earnings of $1.34 million, or 19 cents per share, compared with net income of $300,500, or 6 cents per share, through the first nine months of 1994. Revenue jumped 127% to $9.7 million from $4.27 million.

The company’s stock price had dipped to $6 from $9 earlier this week after a stall in sales of its Win’95 Advisor software--a program that helps computer users prepare their machines for installation of the popular Windows 95. An industry analyst pointed to that sales slowdown in lowering her projections for the company’s fourth-quarter results.

But C. Shannon Jenkins, chief executive of TouchStone, said the company has been happy overall with sales of the Advisor program and pointed to an expected rebound during the Christmas shopping season.

“We expect to enhance our product and focus our marketing toward the next wave of software purchases,” said Jenkins, who added that the company will also soon roll out a new version of its popular WIN Check-It computer diagnostic program.