Microsoft to Develop iPhone Apps?

One Microsoft executive has revealed that iPhone applications may very well be in the company's future.

In a move that can only be compared to Ford developing aftermarket parts for the Chevrolet Corvette, Microsoft has apparently decided that it isn’t too snide to develop software for the flagship platform of its most bitter rival: Apple’s iPhone. In an interview with Fortune, Microsoft exec Tom Gibbons revealed that company engineers are already tinkering with the forbidden fruit.

“It’s really important for us to understand what we can bring to the iPhone,” Gibbons told the magazine. “The key question is, what is the value that we need to bring?” While Gibbons did not reveal what applications Microsoft was considering porting to the iPhone, he did make it clear that the company’s Mac Business Unit (which already develops software such as Office for OS X) could make the leap.

Not surprisingly, there’s money to be made in the move. Fortune writer Jon Fortt speculated that Microsoft may have made up to $200 million from sales of Mac software last year. Since the company’s largest Mac offering, the Microsoft Office Suite, has plenty of logical mobile uses, the company could stand to make plenty more by expanding the productivity suite onto the iPhone.

The iPhone Software Developer’s Kit (SDK), released earlier this month, opened the door for interested third party to develop applications on the iPhone platform.