Redmond, WA (AHN) - Software giant Microsoft is reportedly having its technical staff study the recently released iPhone software development kit, which allows outside programmers to create software that will run on the iPhone or the iTouch. Microsoft's team is eager to study the mechanics of compatible software, in an effort to add their own application line to the devices.

Tom Gibbons, the company's Specialized Devices and Applications Group, said that Microsoft is eager to develop software that will add functionality to users of iPhones and iTouches.

"It's really important for us to understand what we can bring to the iPhone," Gibbons told Fortune. "To the extent that Mac Office customers have functionality that they need in that environment, we're actually in the process of trying to understand that now."

Microsoft's eagerness to contribute to the products of seeming archrival, or at least, competition Apple, comes as an interesting twist, most probably for those who have for years seen the two companies, and their founders, struggle to co-exist as tech magnates.

The companies, however, share a more complicated relationship, according to Fortune, as Microsoft maintains a group of developers, collectively know as the Mac Business Unit, who work to develop software to be included in Apple's Macintosh computer system.

And according to Gibbon, the fusing of the two developers on more than one occasion is an advantage as Microsoft attempts to add their own applications to run on the Mac portable devices.

"We do have some experience with that environment, and that gives us confidence to be able to do something," he said, as quoted by iPhoneWorld. "The key question is, what is the value that we need to bring? We're still getting comfortable with the SDK, right? It's just come out. So we had a guess as to what feasibility would be like, now we'll really get our head wrapped around that."