SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 14— For a few years after it was founded in 1978, the Micropro International Corporation boasted the personal computer industry's most popular word processing software, Wordstar. But as Wordstar has been overtaken by newer and flashier programs, Micropro has struggled to regain lost market share and earnings.
Now the San Rafael, Calif., manufacturer is undergoing the second management upheaval in its brief history. On Wednesday Micropro confirmed the dismissal of its president and chief executive, H. Glen Haney, who was brought in just three years ago, and the resignations of two vice presidents, of sales and international operations, and of finance and administration.
A former Sperry vice president, Mr. Haney was recruited by Micropro's investment bankers in September 1983, and took over the company's management from the founder, Seymour Rubenstein. Now Mr. Rubenstein, who holds 30 percent of Micropro's shares and is chairman emeritus, says the company's backers, including Frederick Adler, a lawyer and venture capitalist, are restructuring management once again.
The departing managers ''were decent people, but this just wasn't their cup of tea,'' Mr. Rubenstein said. While he does not want to run the company again, Mr. Rubenstein said, he hopes to play a major role and is on the consulting team formed by Mr. Adler, a board member and one of Micropro's major stockholders. Mr. Haney did not return telephone calls to his home today, and the company said he was not available for comment.
But Mr. Adler said that Mr. Haney would be assuming a new position as a consultant to Adler & Company, the venture capital concern, in its Sunnyvale, Calif., office.
The latest development follows a string of poor earnings reports for Micropro. Last year the company earned only $207,000 on revenues of $42.6 million, compared with profits of $5.8 million on revenues of $66.9 million in 1984. So far this year the slump has continued, and Micropro lost $2.4 million in its third quarter, ended May 31, for a total loss of $900,000 on revenues of $27.7 million for the year to date. The company attributed the latest loss to the bankruptcy of First Software, a major software distributor that owed the company $1.4 million, and to declining revenues from domestic retail sales.
Micropro's stock, which was offered for $10.50 when the company went public in March 1984, closed unchanged yesterday at $2.4375 in over-the-counter trading.
Analysts say Micropro lost ground to such competing companies as Wordperfect, Ashton-Tate and Microsoft by trying to diversify beyond word processing into various business programs. Software reviewers, who have long criticized Wordstar as difficult to learn, say that the company dawdled in updating the program, and that there are flaws in its newer programs, Easy - which is aimed at first-time or occasional users - and Wordstar 2000 - designed for corporate word processor users.
''These guys have been asleep at the wheel,'' said William Shattuck, an analyst with Montgomery Securities here. Micropro ''lost a lot of time and marketing dollars on productivity software,'' such as spreadsheets and data base management, he said. ''They lost their focus and have paid for it,'' he added. Diversity of Programs
In a recent interview before the report of his dismissal, Mr. Haney did not entirely dispute that analysis. When Wordstar was dominant, Micropro developed a huge variety of programs, with different versions for dozens of different computers. Its plan was to deliver the programs to 11 different countries. The various combinations created a catalog ''of almost 5,000 products, and no way to be profitable,'' he said.
Mr. Haney refocused Micropro on word processing, and reduced the number of employees to 309 from more than 400. While analysts applauded his efforts, many say he moved too slowly.
What Micropro is looking to now, to reverse its fortunes, are a new version of Easy and an update of Wordstar 2000. The new Easy answers the criticism that the initial version of the program was not really very easy. It also adds the ability to copy spreadsheet files directly from Lotus 1-2-3, and has been reduced in price. The updated Wordstar 2000 is faster than its predecessor.
By the end of the year, Micropro intends to release an updated version of the original Wordstar. Despite its detractors, more copies of Wordstar are in circulation than any other single word processing program, with 1.5 million customers and a presumed equal number of pirates. A Move in Desktop Publishing
The company also announced last month that it had acquired a desktop publishing product, to be developed by the Island Graphics Corporation of Sausalito, Calif., which it plans to deliver by the end of the year. A combination of word processing and graphics software, desktop publishing technology, which allows users to create their own brochures and newsletters, represents the newest growth area for personal computers.
Analysts say these steps are positive but overdue. Micropro has ''a tendency to learn slower - they figure these things out almost too late,'' said Jeffrey Tarter, publisher of Softletter, an industry newsletter. Nonetheless Mr. Tarter said he was optimistic. ''They are clearly holding their own, and they've done this in the corporate market where they had almost no presence,'' he said.
While Mr. Rubenstein defended the company's pace, he said he was pleased by the steps being taken to restructure Micropro. ''I've been wanting major changes for a long time,'' he said. ''After three years in which the company went in the wrong direction under another administration, I'm just glad the cash is still there,'' he added, referring to the $20 million Micropro has in the bank.
For Micropro, however, the biggest question is how the company will fare in the race to create the next generation of word processing software that will take advantage of new chip technology and a new personal computer disk operating system to incorporate elements of artificial intelligence and graphics with text editing. Such a program could be both more powerful and easier to use.
Analysts say that, once again, other software companies, such as the Lotus Development Corporation and Microsoft, have the jump on Micropro. ''Exactly what Micropro is doing in that area is not clear,'' said Rick Sherlund, an analyst with Goldman, Sachs. ''It is clear that Lotus and others are not sitting still.'' LEADERS IN WORD PROCESSING
Unit sales for 1985 of the top 10 word processing software packages. $ Software, Manufacturer Units 1. MacWrite* 266,000 Apple Computer Inc. 2. Displaywrite 3 252,000 I.B.M. Corp. 3. Word 198,000 Microsoft Corp. 4. Pfs:Write 180,000 Software Publishing Corp. 5. Writing Assistant 160,000 IBM Corp. 6. Multimate 146,000 Ashton-Tate 7. Word Perfect 120,000 Satellite Software International 8. WordStar and WordStar Professional 97,000 Micropro International 9. Samna Word III 75,000 Samna Corp. 10. WordStar 2000 and 2000+ 56,000 Micropro International *Sold in 1985 only with Macintosh computer. Source: Dataquest Inc.
Photo of H. Glen Haney (NYT/Terrency McCarthy); Graph shows earnings at Micropro; Photo of Wordstar software packages
