Microsoft puts to rest rumors of its CEO attending the Apple dev conference

May 28, 2010 08:41 GMT  ·  By

The Official Twitter page of Microsoft Corporate Communications has confirmed that Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, will, in fact, not be appearing at Apple’s WWDC 2010 event next month. Earlier this week, word on the web was that Ballmer would be allotted seven minutes of the developer-focused conference to discuss making iPhone applications with Microsoft’s development suite, Visual Studio 2010.

A blog post on Barron’s revealed two days ago 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 cited 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 added 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.)”

However, such rumors were soon put to rest by Microsoft itself, via a Twitter post saying, “Steve Ballmer not speaking at Apple Dev Conf. Nor appearing on Dancing with the Stars. Nor riding in the Belmont. Just FYI.”

MacRumors, which also picked up on the story hours after the Barron’s report had hit the wires, touted the move as a big surprise, citing the two companies’ competitive history as the main reason for this assertion. It suggested that a PC-based development suite for the iPhone and Mac OS would, nevertheless, be great news. Sadly, for some, it appears this is not the case, or at least not for now.

Apple confirmed last month that its annual Worldwide Developers Conference would begin on June 7 this year, at San Francisco’s Moscone West. On May 24, the Mac maker confirmed that CEO Steve Jobs was set to kick off WWDC 2010 with a keynote address on Monday, June 7.