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Apple’s WWDC keynote to include Steve Ballmer?

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"We Bing, we Bing, we... I mean, we Visual Studio 2010"

Here’s a rumor that’s sure to make the heads explode of fanboys from all corners: Steve Ballmer is said to be speaking at the keynote at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference next week, talking about using Visual Studio 2010 to build apps for the Apple environment. Let the Internet be set ablaze!

The rumor is being floated on Barron’s (by way of BGR). While it may seem a case of strange bedfellows, the move, if true, makes perfect sense in the battle royale of the mobile wars.

Adobe is accusing Apple of not playing fair because they won’t allow apps translated from non-native languages (like those originally written in Flash) on the iPhone OS. Per their revised developer agreement: “Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs…” This effectively cut out the possibility of translating Adobe Flash apps into iPhone apps. Microsoft’s Visual Studio, however, does allow developers to work natively in the C languages. Thus, the argument that Apple restricts app development to their own tools may soon be thrown out the window. (Mostly. I assume VS will rely on an Apple-designed plug-in for iPhone app development.)

The bigger news, however, is this would mark the end of Mac-only development for the iPhone OS. Up to this point, Apple had restricted their development tools to Mac OS X (which was logical given the iPhone OS is a scaled-down version of it). Opening it up to Windows users unlocks a huge developer audience for them. We live in interesting times.

11 Comments

11 Comments

  1. Li

    05/27/2010 at 7:08 am

    Microsoft just don’t test their products. They are inferior and yukky. They should be called Moronsoft. As for Ballmer, he just makes me puke (but the perfect CEO for the company). Microsoft are now the past. Apple is the future. The battle is over. Apple has won. It’s not even a stalemate, it’s a checkmate.

  2. ChrisRS

    05/27/2010 at 9:14 am

    That is a pretty broad statement. Discussion on this site tend to be quite civil. You may want to read some of the other threads to get a feeling for what is appropriate at GBM.

    Which Microsoft products are you refering to?
    Hardware or software?

    What battle in particular has Apple won? You might want to provide some statistics if you want to be taken seriously.

    • Li

      05/31/2010 at 7:59 am

      What miracle has come out of Microsoft under Ballmer? Basically nothing. Microsoft has just stagnated. It’s just been mess after mess after mess. As Apple’s market cap went past Microsoft’s the other day all Ballmer could say was: “… well we still rake in more profit than any other technology company.” That is a pathetic response. The prices for the Visual Studio 2010 packages are ridiculous, as is the cost of most of their other software. Microsoft have been hammering away at VB programming for years – they can hardly give it away now. Apple however puts out the quality SDK and we have hundreds of thousands of Apps. It just makes me furious to see Microsoft now trying to muscle in on Apple’s success, of course all for profit, nothing else. The battle that Apple has won is that of being the World’s Greatest Technology Company. How did they win? By being exceptional.

      • ChrisRS

        06/01/2010 at 2:25 pm

        OK. That is much clearer. You do not like MS and their software is to expensive. I agree that Vista was mess. I still have to ask, specifically, what other messes are you refering to?

        • Li

          06/03/2010 at 9:25 am

          Mess is everywhere with Microsoft. Compatibility issues, huge security issues, enormous endless service packs, the dear old Zune, cranky & slow Windows-based phones, unexpected shut-downs, software freezes, and ultra-skimpy capability. I use some of their software but it’s hastle after hastle. Google have actually decided to now dump their Windows computers. The replacements are Macs. Fortunately Google has the money to do that. You should also try to see things more in a global context where mediocre Microsoft software is now affecting global progress like you can’t even begin to imagine…

  3. GoodThings2Life

    05/27/2010 at 10:54 am

    There’s a huge variety of WIN for Microsoft here…

    1) Bing exclusive. Huge loss for Google and huge victory for Microsoft.

    2) Silverlight for iPhone. Why does it matter? Well…

    3) Development in VS for iPhone is a double-victory for Microsoft… First, it means more developers licensing Visual Studio AND having access to the iPhone AND Windows Phone 7 development tools. More access to the tools means cross-platform development. More cross-platform development means more consistent apps deployed on Windows Phone 7 making it a quickly successful platform in spite of its tardiness.

    • Sumocat

      05/27/2010 at 1:34 pm

      Interesting that they’ve only disputed that Ballmer will speak. What abut the underlying rumor of a Microsoft Visual Studio presentation?

      • Oliver

        05/27/2010 at 8:00 pm

        They only have 140 chars, remember?

  4. Stuart

    05/27/2010 at 1:26 pm

    How do these rumors get reported as fact? It’s not even April 1st.

  5. Estevez

    06/01/2010 at 12:57 am

    Visual studio is great.
    Bing … (i was a fan, but I’m disappointed now) is not great. G brings better, more relevant results.

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