It's Apple (AAPL) backlash time.

When Apple announced on Thursday that iTunes has sold 200 million TV shows over the last three years, the company clearly expected Hollywood and network executives to stand up and cheer. They didn't.

At a presentation at New York University yesterday, Craig Mundie, Microsoft's (MSFT) head of research and strategy, paced back and forth in front of a PowerPoint presentation. It was a pretty flat display for the fast-moving, multidimensional product he was proposing.

Along with several east coast colleges, Microsoft is backing a $3 million effort to move videogames into K-12 classrooms.

Silicon Valley is seeing pink. Hit by turmoil in the financial markets, general economic decline, and slowing sales, the tech sector is expected to follow Wall Street with its own mass layoffs.

Rumors abound that AT&T (T), Yahoo (YHOO), and eBay (EBAY) will together release thousands of workers into the unemployment pool. Those will add to the mounting figures: Earlier this year, Sun Microsystems (SUNW)let up to 2,500 employees go; Nortel (NT) is cutting 2,100 jobs; Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) will reduce staff by nearly 25,000 following its acquisition of Electronic Data Systems; and even Google (GOOG) got into the game with the shedding of 300 jobs at DoubleClick.