While most eyes are still on stopping the bleed on Wall Street, smart tech companies will likely take a page out of Warren Buffet's playbook by looking for merger and acquisition opportunities with stocks at multi-year lows.

The Nasdaq Composite Index, where most tech stocks trade, dropped 13% this week. Nasdaq is down 26% in the last 30 days -- and off 43% from a year ago.

That makes the downturn worse than Nasdaq's 36% fall during the crash of 1987, but not as bad as the 78% decline during the dot-com crash of 2000, Barron's blogger Eric Savitz notes .

Individual tech stocks, some of which trade on Nasdaq and others on the New York Stock Exchange, took a beating. Sun Microsystems Inc., Yahoo Inc. , and Nvidia Inc. this week fell 27%, 20% and 18%, respectively.

Despite the credit crunch, that could open up buying opportunities for cash-rich companies, said Oracle Corp CEO Larry Ellison at his company's annual stockholders' meeting today, reported The Wall Street Journal .

It also makes struggling firms that have hoarded cash more attractive, no-risk targets. For instance, Sun's market cap is just $3.61 billion, despite holding cash and short-term investments worth $2.7 billion.

Here's a run-down of the potential prey and predators in this new buyer's market.

Note: all stock prices and market cap figures are as of close of trading Friday, Oct. 10. Financial figures come from Yahoo Finance, Morningstar.com and SeekingAlpha.com.

Prey

Sun Microsystems Inc.
Symbol: JAVA
Stock Price $4.80
Off 52-week high: 81%
P/E ratio: 9.8
Market capitalization: $3.61B
Cash and short-term investments: $2.7B
Cash/market cap: 75% (higher better for acquirer)

Though Sun has been profitable for the last four quarters, it remains a shadow of its glorious self during the dot-com era. Despite paying $1 billion to buy open-source database vendor MySQL AB Sun still has $2.7 billion in cash, making it, from that standpoint alone, a no-brainer for the right buyer.
On the other hand, CEO Jonathan Schwartz has indicated his desire to turn the company around rather than sell. And with its cash-in-hand, it too could be a buyer. As colleague Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols notes , Sun has a checkered history, such as with its failed $2 billion buy of Cobalt Networks.

Research In Motion Inc.
Symbol: RIMM
Stock Price: $55.28
Off 52-week high: 63%
P/E ratio: 18
Market cap: $31.3B
Cash and short-term investments: $1.38B
Cash/market cap: 4%

One analyst, as reported by Reuters, believes Microsoft has a "standing offer" to buy the BlackBerry handset maker for $50 a share. Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek said the deal would require RIM's stock to fall to $40 a share before such a Microsoft bid would seem

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