Windows Phone Catching Fire with Developers: Survey

In the battle for third place behind Google Android and Apple iPhone, Microsoft's Windows Phone platform is making progress among developers, according to a new survey.

The evidence that Microsoft is edging out Research In Motion's BlackBerry as smartphone platform No. 3 comes from the latest Appcelerator/IDC survey, released Monday (PDF here).

"The third major mobile OS after iOS and Android is now clearly Windows, driven largely by the Microsoft/Nokia partnership and underscored by the new Nokia Lumia 800," said Scott Ellison, vice president of Mobile & Connected Consumer Platforms at IDC, in a statement about the survey results.

The number of respondents saying they are "very interested" in the Windows Phone OS jumped 8 points this quarter to 38 percent, according to the survey of 2,160 Appcelerator developers.

By comparison, RIM lost 7 points of share to wind up with 21 percent of respondents saying they were "very interested" in developing for Blackberry OS phones.

When asked why they had more interest in Windows Phone than a year ago, a plurality of 48 percent attributed it to the Microsoft/Nokia partnership.

The Appcelerator/IDC announcement of the results characterized Windows Phone as having "decisively moved ahead" of RIM.

The results are a good leading indicator for future market share gains by Microsoft. Windows Phone still has a long way to go to be a serious contender to the dominant platforms, though. Developers "very interested" in developing for Android amounted to 83 percent of respondents. Those "very interested" in developing for iPhone came to 91 percent.

Posted by Scott Bekker on November 14, 2011 at 11:58 AM