Apps at CES: Microsoft's Ballmer Really Doesn't Have a Clue

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The geeks at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas worked themselves into a lather last night. Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer made a "surprise cameo" appearance.

Call me a disrespectful cynic, but this isn't quite to the level of Springsteen showing up at a Gaslight Anthem show, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine joining Bruce or Brandon Flowers of the Killers covering the Boss at the freaking Stone Pony! (Be sure to go to Page Two for some true YouTube greatness!). Not even close.

If Apple's (AAPL) Tim Cook or Twitter founder/Square CEO Jack Dorsey or Amazon.com (AMZN) top dawg Jeff Bezos or Howard Schultz of Starbucks (SBUX) or TheStreet's Jim Cramer stepped on that Las Vegas stage last night, the world, not just nerddom, would have had reason for excitement.

To his credit: Ballmer, as is often the case, did come off like a rock star on a hallucinatory trip.

I had to double-check with my girls in Vegas to make sure I got this right, but here's what Ballmer said last night. And this is what all of the scribes feverishly pounded out for the news wires last night.

We have seen the number of apps in our Windows Marketplace, available on Windows tablets, increase five-fold since October.

He's probably just a quick typer so forgive the spelling errors, but a guy who sent me a Tweet said it best: