Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer to Appear on Stage at WWDC 2010 for 7 Minutes - Report

At least one analyst thinks Apple’s WWDC 2010 keynote will not be a bore, according to Barron’s Tech Trader Daily blog. Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with tiny Global Equities Research, asserts that seven minutes of the June 7 keynote will be allotted to Steve Ballmer. The analyst believes that Microsoft’s CEO will have a short presentation to talk about Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft’s development suite.

The blog post reveals that, “Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with tiny Global Equities Research, contends that 7 minutes of the June 7 keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been blocked off for a presentation by Microsoft (MSFT) to talk about Visual Studio 2010, the company’s suite of development tools.”

The author cites Chowdhry as saying that, “The new version of VS will allow developers to write native applications for the iPhone, iPad and Mac OS.” The report adds that, “[Chowdhry] thinks Microsoft’s presentation could be given by none other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. (Or if not, at least Bob Muglia, who runs Microsoft’s server and tools business.)”

Softpedia note
Of course, the fact that Chowdhry “thinks” Steve Ballmer will deliver the seven-minute presentation doesn’t actually make a breaking story. Still, if not Steve Ballmer, or at least Bob Muglia as noted in the blog post, then who, Bill Gates? If the rumor is true, Microsoft’s CEO is indeed a likely candidate for the presentation in question.

A report by MacRumors, which picked up on the story a few hours after Barron’s broke the news to the world, claims the move is a big surprise, the main reason being the two companies’ competitive history. It adds that a PC-based development suite for iPhone and Mac OS would also be major. Indeed, both developers and end users would benefit from the move, since iPhone and Mac OS applications can only be coded with Apple's own Xcode development tools, on Macs.