Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to Present During WWDC 2010 Keynote?

Thoughts on Flash

Steve Jobs
April, 2010

Sixth, the most important reason.
[...]

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

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In a way, I am not 100% surprised.

1) Back in 2006, Microsoft started backing Novell Linux (formally Suse). I don't hear much about Novell Linux anymore. Mac seems to be the only Unix/Linux flavor that has really taken off. All the others are around for a while than drop from radar for most I/T shops.

2) Microsoft has a huge stain on itself with the bungles in the OS, over the last few years. The OS is only a small part of it's revenue. Most money comes from Office, and enterprise products like SQL-Server, and Visual Studio.

3) Plus this already has been in the works. My company did some very brief primer training on Visual Basic 2008 for those switching from VB6, VB.NET and visual studio 2003; one of the comments mentioned was about built in capabilities to make the code (web applications) generic enough for running on a mac now. It would only make sense for MS to have continued success to allow writing of iDevice applications and mac desktop applications.

However, I would imagine and would not want someone developing a mac application on Windows. Trying to test and debug would be horrible, and one would need a mac to test on. I mean we are talking about Windows vs. a Unix variant (Free BDS).

One thing though, I wonder if MS is really getting sick of all the calls of (he my app runs on xx hardware, but I am having trouble with xx hardware). With Apple there is limited hardware to write for. with PC's - how many PC makers are there? I'm in I/T I see where something runs fine on IBM but will not run on Dell, and vice-versa. Usually due to driver or BIOS issues.

Now Bing, I do not like. Does not return all the results Google does, and Bing maps has me living 6 miles from my true location. A delivery driver recently called me and asked where I was. Sure enough, I pulled up Bing and that is where he was.

One of the other announcements could be the return of Office macros and scripting. I once asked a MACBU rep about the missing macros and they said VBA was an old VB6 language and too hard to port over. They could not tell me officially their road map, but they did hint at "oh I don't know .NET maybe?" would only make sense.

Crap. Keep iPhone development exclusive to OSX so people will buy Macs.

I don't see why Apple would let microsoft do this.

SN Systems used to provide Playstation2 development on Windows via a version of GCC that ran on Windows and even had a slightly hacky Visual Studio integration. If a third party can do it, it would be trivial for MS to provide support for a windows build of Apple's compiler, and the only extra work would be adding objective-C support for all the syntax highlighting and so forth. The harder part would be Interface Builder. Having VS spawn a Windows version of IB would be pretty weird, and adding native support into Visual Studio would be a huge task.

Just having the compiler would be great for game developers doing crossplatform development for Mac and PC, since games typically don't use native GUI elements on any platform, but that would seem awfully weird for Apple to allow a development environment that would discourage using Cocoa NIB files.

lostngone said:

Why anyone would want ANY microsoft software on any hardware platform is beyond me.

Is unstable, slow, virus ridden software the "in" thing these days?

Come on, if your going to let microsoft in why not let Adobe join the party and make the iPhone completely useless.

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I take it you've not used the very impressive Windows 7 then?

Reason077 said:

This isn't exactly a secret. How do you think Safari (a Cocoa app) runs on Windows?

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Most of Safari is written in C++ now. There are small sections of platform-specific bridging code.

The claim is correct, just not for that reason. In the same way that Apple secretly kept OS X running on Intel after the early Intel-compatible Rhapsody builds, the Cocoa team has been keeping Cocoa running on Windows all along. It's not in any shipping product - someone would have noticed - but it's kept up-to-date internally. I don't know if they have specific current plans for it or if it's just a backup plan like x86 OS X was.



As for this rumor, I don't have any specific information, but it would be sort of a dick move to have Ballmer show a new Mac-compatible or Mac-targeting IDE and then blow it away with Xcode 4 in the same keynote.

Not happening, based on the original blog on this subject, posted on April 1 by I. B. Foolin. Seems our analyst read that post and failed to recognize that it was an April Fool's joke.

WeegieMac said:

I take it you've not used the very impressive Windows 7 then?

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Or Visual Studio for that matter.

That being said this is total BS. Unless Steve Jobs is really scared about Google and recognizes they need more developer following and support. Partnering with MS on that front would certainly send a huge message. Google is really putting out an olive branch to developers. And that could be a problem for Apple.

But again, BS. Microsoft is not going to do this when they are on the verge of releasing a new Mobile OS.

Developers Developers Developers

Oh wow, Steve Ballmer at WWDC. Not sure how that will go down, probably as much as Microsoft's recent share price (7 month low). Anyway as long as he brings some deodorant and has washed in the last 7 days it's ok if he's announcing something that will be useful. MS Office for iPad someday Ballmer?

For anyone who doesn't get the reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-...F693DCC7&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=14

Steve-O...

Developers, developers, developers, developers!

What time does the Key-Note start? Will it be on TV (G4 network)? Or is it streamed online anywhere to be able to watch it live? Thanks Guys

shervieux said:

1) Back in 2006, Microsoft started backing Novell Linux (formally Suse). I don't hear much about Novell Linux anymore. Mac seems to be the only Unix/Linux flavor that has really taken off. All the others are around for a while than drop from radar for most I/T shops.

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What the hell are you talking about? Ever been on the Web? Most of the Internet runs on servers running some flavor of Linux. Mostly, Red Hat and Ubuntu.

I've always said: "Macs on the front. Linux on the back."

DARKJ3DI said:

Seriously, what is up with all this Macintosh love from 3rd parties recently? Its as if developers are moving in to fill the Apple's void in the Mac!

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2 words:
Market Share

This won't happen after Apple didn't let Adobe's software make iPhone apps. Jobs wants one development platform, he certainly won't let the Microsoft filth into his beautiful iDevices.

What cracked me up here was MacRumors finding a flattering picture of Ballmer for the article. That must be a first! (not to mention difficult haha)

On a serious note, it is a fascinating turn of events and on the heels of the gains Apple has made in valuation recently, Ballmer will feel a little uncomfortable I suspect. The loss in value Microsoft has suffered under his leadership is unparalleled in history yet rarely mentioned. Last time I checked over 300 billion dollars wiped of the company's value. How he has retained his job is simply a mystery.

I hope the audience have the grace to simply sit in silence when / if.. he is introduced and not jeer and boo. But please no applause ok?

I've never been able to take ballmer serious after seeing pirates of silicon valley lol

No way in hell Ballmer takes the stage at an Apple event. ANother Microsoft employee yes, Ballmer, never.

rdowns said:

No way in hell Ballmer takes the stage at an Apple event. ANother Microsoft employee yes, Ballmer, never.

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If it was anyone from MS it would be Scott Guthrie. He is the Scott Forestall of MS.

mox358 said:

Wouldn't allowing Microsoft to make Visual Studio output iPad and iPhone apps break the developer agreement for iDevelopers? This just seems odd after the big fuss Jobs made about allowing others to create development tools that lag behind Apple's own and using that as part of their ammo to shoot down Adobe. Now just a few weeks later they're going to endorse MS doing it? Kinda confusing...

Not that I'm an Adobe/Flash fanatic - I agree with Jobs that letting Adobe (or anybody else for that matter) be a middle-man between Apple and iDevs is a bad idea, but to openly embrace MS software so soon after beating down Adobe? Something doesn't add up...

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Not if they are written in C/Objective-C and Apple provides or approves of the Linker. It is also possible they realized how limiting that decision might have been.(Not just Adobe but potential to impact Unity and someother frameworks that are already important to the platform).

But...

Visual Studio 2010 is already released. (Not to mention in it was in beta for quite some time before that, so its development history isn't exactly secret.)

Unless they're releasing Visual Studio 2011 (two months after the 2010 version!) or making one heck of a serious "add-on" for 2010, I really doubt this.

But it would be cool.

Maybe he'll do the monkey dance and then say
"I...LOVE...THIS COMPANY...TOO!!!!!"

WOW is it April 1st ??

I had to double check the date.... I thought it was April 1st or something....

Microsoft Building tools for Developing applications on the Mac? WTF??

This wouldn't really surprise me that much, and then mostly that Balmer didn't send someone else to be on stage. Microsoft and Apple have played well together in certain areas for a long time, and it would be a good alliance in the face of Google's threat to both businesses.

It could also help in anti-trust cases, like the one Adobe has sought action on. With Visual Studio support Apple could say we allow 3rd party dev tools, just not those that take the approach that Adobe was trying. As far as support for future API's, if Apple is writing the dev kit for Visual Studio then they still have control. In fact the libraries themselves could potentially be cross platform and require little work to update or add. This is different from Adobe's approach since they have a translator which would need to be updated and debugged to add the support to their tool.

And of course there is Office for iPad, which Microsoft would be a fool not to release.

Zc456 said:

Oh please, prior to Microsoft eating the OS industry, Apple and MS were pretty good teams. Offfice was first on the Mac and I think Microsoft helped develop the programming code for System 1.0. I could be wrong though on the programming - still searching. The only reason Apple hates MS' guts is for competition reasons, and the whole GUI issue.

I mean, Apple let's you run Windows on a Mac now!

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Microsoft never really has abandonned the Mac as software developer. Even when the poor fruit company was on life support. Could be despite the volume disparity with the Windows side, the MacBU is still a money maker. Office for Mac, iPod and iPad doesn't seem unreasonable to announce at WWDC.

Here is something totally from left field. Microsoft announces it is bringing back IE to the Mac.

IF there was any truth to this, it would probably be to show Silverlight for iPhone OS. That would be the only deal between Apple and MS that would be truely beneficial to both since Apple hates Flash and Silverlight is a Flash competitor.