Survey: Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 a distant third in developer interest

Amid "plateauing" interest in Android among mobile developers, as detailed in the latest quarterly survey by Appcelerator and IDC is some mixed news for Windows Phone.

Among the 2,700-plus developers using the Appcelerator Titanium cross-platform development environment surveyed by the research outfits in mid-April, Microsoft is now considered the distant third horse in the mobile race, trailing Apple and Android, but edging out RIM.

Microsoft fell seven points since the last survey, with 29 percent of the developers surveyed saying they are "very interested" in Windows Phone 7. But Blackberry phones dropped eleven points, to 27 percent, in terms of high developer interest during the same period. (Windows 7 tablets don't even merit a mention in slide above.)

In spite of the potential upside of Microsoft's partnership with Nokia, Microsoft's phone platform still faces some major perception barriers with developers, according to the survey results.

Microsoft "faces a long road ahead and will be challenged by both market share issues and a time-starved developer base," the Appcelerator-IDC researchers found. "At this point, developers simply have their hands full with getting mobile projects out on the top two platforms."

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The full 17-page Appcelerator survey is downloadable from the Appcelerator site. As a few readers have noted, Appcelerator's tools do work on Windows PCs, but don't seem to support Windows Phone on the mobile side. However, because Microsoft is recruiting heavily among Android and Apple developers for its phone platform, I still consider the survey results worth writing about.

Update: An interesting Nokia-related aside: Nokia currently looks to be one of the most active contributors to the Android code base.