Survey Says: Windows Phone 8 Support Strong, HTML5 Important for Multi-Device App Dev

We recently conducted a survey to our developer community about the impact that today’s multi-device world has on businesses and application development. Over 1,400 developers, managers, and IT execs responded and shared their insights on a variety of topics, including Windows Phone 8, Apple’s iOS 6, and the challenges of IT in a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) world.

A key finding from the survey is that almost half (46%) of companies intend to support Windows Phone 8 within the next 6-to-12 months. This early indication of broad support for Microsoft’s mobile platform continues the growing trend of corporate support for multiple mobile platforms.

In addition:

• 83% of companies support two or more mobile operating systems, with 34% supporting three or more.
• Apple’s iOS is the first or second most important mobile platform for 63% of companies (33% ranked it as the most important) while Android was selected as first or second by 57% (20% ranked it as the most important).

“58% of companies either have or will have a formal BYOD policy within the next 12 months.”

The continued broad acceptance and importance of HTML5 to multi-device application development was apparent as well. The survey showed:

• 61% replied that they conduct mobile app development in house for deployment across multiple platforms.
• 68% of the companies polled believe that their greatest skills in development are in Web technologies such as HTML5, JS, and CSS rather than in native development (iOS was selected by only 14% and Android by 13% as the biggest programming skill in their organization).

It’s clear to us from this survey and other sources that the mobile market will continue to fragment, and the need for application developers to support multiple platforms and devices will only grow. You can see the formal press release on the survey results here.