Ballmer is not going to Apple's launch party

ALTHOUGH IT'S A SHAREHOLDER of Apple, Microsoft has gone out of its way to deny a rumour that Steve Jobs will be sharing a mic with the Vole's CEO Steve Ballmer at Apple's next developers conference.

There have been a few daft rumours about Ballmer lately and the funny thing is that they have been reported by the mainstream press.

The latest was that he was going to speak at the Apple developer's conference. It is not clear where this last one started. The story was that Microsoft was about to do a deal with Apple that was worth announcing together.

The mainstream press seemed to suggest that there would be an iconic moment when Jobs would hand the mic over to Ballmer.

The rumour gained such traction that a financial analyst sent a note to investors saying Ballmer would appear hawking Volish programs that can be used to create Iphone apps.

However there is another rumour that also got similar distribution, which says that Steve is about to do a Woz and appear on Dancing with the Stars.

Anyway both rumours have now been officially spiked by Microsoft. It tweeted, "Steve Ballmer not speaking at Apple (Dev. Conf. Nor appearing on Dancing with the Stars. Nor riding in the Belmont. Just FYI."

We're not sure about the riding in the Belmont rumour, we had not heard that one and Ballmer's a bit bigger than most jockeys. µ