Steve Ballmer On-Stage At WWDC 2010 Predicts Analyst; Apple Have "Little Room For Surprise" Reckons Rival

Apple's June 7th WWDC 2010 keynote is approaching, and thanks to various pre-show leaks of the fourth-generation iPhone HD many are questioning exactly how groundbreaking the Steve Jobs presentation might be.  That seems like the ideal opportunity for an analyst face-off: perennial Apple ponderer Gene Munster, of Piper Jaffray, reckons Apple has "little room for surprise" during the event, while Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry is predicting a seven minute guest appearance during the keynote by none other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Munster is pouring cold water on rumors that Apple will announce a CDMA iPhone at the event, telling investors that "We believe that it is unlikely that the next generation iPhone will be available at Verizon (or Sprint) at launch; rather, it is more likely that it remains exclusively available at AT&T in the U.S. at launch."  Instead he's tentatively predicting a Mac OS X 10.7 preview demo, though the bulk of the WWDC 2010 developer sessions are focused on the new iPhone OS 4.

As for Ballmer's presence, Chowdhry believes that Microsoft will be taking to the WWDC stage to announce iPhone OS and Mac development tools in Visual Studio 2010.  Unbelievable, perhaps – and the analyst is also covering himself by suggesting that Bob Muglia, head of the Microsoft server and tools division, might show up instead – but all of a sudden we're all excited about our WWDC 2010 SlashGear liveblog again.  Join us on June 7th at http://live.slashgear.com/!