Ignore Ballmer. Listen to what Ballmer has to say!

Seems like CEO Steve Ballmer has had some time to think about how the financial markets crisis may affect Microsoft after all.
According to a report on CNBC.com Sept. 29, Ballmer said “no company is immune to these issues.” That’s in contrast to comments he made just last Thursday in Silicon Valley that tech still enjoys some “buoyancy” despite the financial crisis. Ballmer told about 550 people at a Churchill Club dinner I attended that “people in our business are feeling better than if they watched CNBC all day.” Apparently, then, what Ballmer’s really saying is: “Tech will be okay as long as people don’t watch CNBC all day, unless they see ME on CNBC. Then they should panic.”
What’s frustrating for me in the debate about the bailout is this notion of “Wall Street versus Main Street,” that if we bail out Wall Street we’re screwing Main Street. If there is no bailout for Wall Street, then there is no money to nourish Main Street. The global economy is so intertwined that one affects the other. Look at the fact that one of the tech stocks hit hardest on Monday’s 777-point Wall Street plunge was Apple, which took an 18 percent hit. Microsoft’s shares fell by 8.7 percent, prompting Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith to urge Congress to pass the bailout as "vitally important" to the economy.
That tells you that if AIG, Lehman Bros., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other companies in the mortgage and credit markets suffer, fewer consumers will be going into the Apple store on Main Street to buy iPods and Mac computers. That’s something to worry about and you don’t have to watch CNBC to see that.