AAPL, GOOG Dominate Baird Dev Survey; Interest in Win Phone 8

R.W. Baird‘s William Power today offers up the data from his “quarterly mobile application developer’s survey,” conducted with the participation of 200 app writers out of a sample set of 4,300, half of whom were in North America, and a third in Europe.

77% of those surveyed were developing for Google‘s (GOOG) Android�operating system, writes Power, while 73% were writing for Apple‘s (AAPL) iOS software.

From there, the numbers drop to 23% for Research in Motion‘s (RIMM) BlackBerry operating system, 19% developing for RIM’s forthcoming “BB10” operating system, and 20% developing for Microsoft‘s (MSFT) Windows Phone 7.

Power offers some summaries of how this small sample of developers seem to be regarding those various platforms.

“Not surprisingly, iOS and Android remained dominant with strong long-term outlooks as graded by developers,” writes Power.

He sees a slowing of enthusiasm for Win Phone 7:

In Q2�12, 45% WP7 developers reported an uptick in downloads since the launch of the Nokia Lumia devices in Q4�11, down slightly from 47% in Q1�12. Downloads indicate soft Q2. We believe that the flattish results reported by developers indicates weak sales of Nokia Lumia devices in Q2, especially considering the level of marketing power recently put behind the Lumia 900 in the U.S. The adoption of WP7 devices and WP8 devices is critical to Nokia�s turn-around strategy in 2012.

But happily for Microsoft, 71% of developers survey said the announcement of Windows Phone 8 three weeks ago increased their interest in the platform, while 64% were enthusiastic about the announcement of Microsoft’s “Surface” tablet computer: “When asked what feature of WP8 was the most interesting, 66% of respondents indicated that the common code base with Windows 8 Desktop was the most exciting new feature of WP8.”

Power notes developer thoughts about BlackBerry and BB10 has declined since last quarter:

After seeming to stabilize last quarter, the developer�s long-term view of BlackBerry 10 continued its slide this quarter, falling to 3.8 from 4.6 in the previous quarter. BlackBerry OS outlook plummets. In Q2 the outlook for BB OS declined to 2.8 from 3.8, the largest decline for BB OS since we started the survey in 2010.