Apple continues to hold sway among the developers community but a latest survey has indicated that its erstwhile dominant rival, Microsoft, may flash noticeable surprises in 2012 and eventually catch up in the now-lucrative mobile computing industry.

According to the joint survey conducted in early November by Appcelerator and IDC, Microsoft appears to be heading on the right track on the strength of its collaborative agreement with mobile phone maker Nokia.

And along with Microsoft, the new survey also greeted with 'excitement' Amazon's decision to upgrade its popular eBook reader, the Kindle, that saw the gadget morphing into a sort of a tablet computer following its adoption of Google's Android.

Next to the iOS, which powers the million-selling iPhones and iPads, the open-source mobile platform by Google has been the preferred mobile operating system by global application developers owing to the two companies' market dominance, the study said.

"Amazon and Microsoft are the two big movers as we head into 2012," Reuters reported Appcelerator marketing chief Scott Schwarzhoff as saying during an interview with the new agency.

Specifically, the Appcelerator official cited Amazon's move of finally joining the tablet computer foray and issuing a device, the Kindle Fire, that won plaudits among developers for its affordability and vast app content capability.

Amazon has scheduled the new Kindle Fire to debut Tuesday this week and this early developers are heaping good words on the new gadget, including Schwarzhoff, who told Reuters that "it has all the trappings of the next big thing."

He added that only Apple's iPad generated the same amount of interest that the Kindle Fire has nearly sparked among developers and prospective buyers alike.

As for Microsoft, the company, according to Appcelerator, did the right thing in partnering with the giant Finnish phone maker as the two entities are set to benefit from the product of their strategic deal - the Windows-powered Nokia Lumia product lines launched earlier in October.

Effectively, Microsoft is set to score big with the new Nokia hardware, Schwarzhoff said, with the company gaining 38 percent of interest among developers.

While Microsoft climbs, it was unfortunate that Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of BlackBerry, further slid into near obscurity as the company failed to attract additional attention despite releasing earlier new BlackBerry models, which in turn suffered interest retreat of seven percentage points among developers.

RIM's foray into the tablet computer market, the dismal-selling PlayBook, was a discouragement too and Appcelerator has pegged the device's interest numbers to a mere 16 percent, absorbing a six percent drop from previous surveys.

As expected, Apple's bestselling gadgets, the iPhone and iPad, dominated the field as the two registered interest of 91 and 88 percent respectively, the Appcelerator study said, which noted too that interests on Android phones and tablets retreated by respective levels of 83 and 68 percent.

However, the interest dips on Android gadgets was far from alarming, Schwarzhoff said.