The second alternative is also unattractive because I.B.M. might be distressed to see its longtime auditor align itself with some of its biggest competitors.

Last week, the Enron Corporation fired its longtime auditor, Arthur Andersen, during the company's accounting scandal.

A longtime auditor, they contended, built up expertise on the company.

In the intervening years, the company filed various regulatory reports and statements, which were approved by A.I.G.'s longtime auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Many of those now fielding calls are longtime auditors whose old jobs were hunting for errors and searching for cheating on tax returns filed years earlier.

Ordinarily, deciding to keep a longtime auditor is no big deal and would not require court approval, even in bankruptcy.

An effort by shareholders to prod the Sprint Corporation into dropping its longtime auditor, Ernst & Young, appeared to fall short yesterday.

The largest sticking point for any potential suitor is the liability facing Andersen for its role as the longtime auditor of Enron.

Many longtime auditors have chafed, for example, at being pulled off examining tax returns to answer telephone calls from taxpayers.

Deloitte, of course, was the longtime auditor for Microsoft and one of the leading accounting firms in Silicon Valley at the time.