Rumor for developers, developers, developers! Steve Ballmer to present at WWDC?
Barron's reports, you decide: According to Trip Chowdry, an analyst with Global Equities Research, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will have seven minutes of stage time at WWDC 2010.
[Wait, what now? –Ed.]
According to Chowdry, Ballmer's topic will be Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft's development suite.The supposed announcement will center on VS10's hypothetical ability to write native apps for iPhone, iPad, and (gasp) Mac OS. Currently, such apps can only be created in Apple's Xcode environment.
There are a couple of schools of thought that might discredit or support this rumor. On one hand, the current Xcode-only development regime requires a Mac. As many of us know, once you go Mac, it's difficult to go back; these iPhone and iPad developers may go on to make great Mac apps, too.
The flip side of this is that requiring Xcode, and thus a Mac, serves as a large barrier to entry for many developers and the apps that they could potentially make. VisualStudio may attract users who wouldn't switch desktop platforms to develop for the iPhone or iPad.
Given the notoriously secretive nature of Steve Jobs's keynotes, it's difficult to imagine that information like this, if true, could slip out. It's also hard to reconcile the full-court press against other IDEs for the iPhone (the notorious 3.3.1 clause) with the idea of letting Microsoft deliver a fully supported development platform for Apple's crown jewel devices.
[Translation: Trip Chowdry may have some bad intel here. –Ed.]
