NASDAQ's wild ride could mean cool tool deprivation

Ouch!

The bubble has burst. The tech sector, which has been going up and up and up, has come crashing down to earth like a useless Iridium satellite.

This has made life miserable for Internet billionaires, stockbrokers, analysts and individual investors. Now you may not care a hoot about any of these folks (it's hard to feel bad for a Porsche Boxster-driving 23-year-old CEO), but trust me, this tech stock disaster is going to bite your butt, too.

Here's the logic: This business has been sparkling because smart people have been given money to pursue their tech dreams. The result has been innovation like we've never seen before, wealth beyond our wildest imaginations, and more products than you can shake a stick at. That is all good.

So what happens when the stock values dry up? So much bad stuff I don't even want to think about it. First, these smart people with smart ideas, instead of getting funded, end up staring all day at a Wendy's Fry-O-Lator. Say goodbye to cool new products - and hello, Oxy 5. Next, companies that already received a first round of financing fail to get a second. Say goodbye to more cool new products.

Then, start-ups that have already gone public will collapse under the weight of a free-falling NASDAQ. Say goodbye to even more cool products. Plus, half the mergers that are based on high-ticket stock fall apart, and the companies discover they can't make it on their own. Yup, say goodbye to more cool stuff. This wave we've been riding has been great, but this little NASDAQ fall can wipe away all of our advances.

Can somebody, somewhere, please execute a buy order or two?

Barney is Executive Editor of News at Network World. He can be reached at netflash@nww.com.

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