Rim's VP of developer relations, Alec Saunders, has struck back at a Baird survey suggesting that developers are losing interest in BlackBerry 10. "I was pretty shocked by the findings," Saunders wrote in a blog post. "I was shocked because the numbers in the report do not gel with what we’re seeing in the real world." Instead, he says, the BlackBerry App World vendor base has grown 157 percent in the past year, and even the PlayBook app catalog has "grown by more than 15,000 apps since January 1st of this year." Saunders also pointed to high attendance at the BlackBerry 10 Jams being hosted worldwide.

We're glad to hear of any bright spot for RIM, and the company has indeed just passed three billion downloads in its store. Unfortunately, most of these facts aren't necessarily incompatible with the survey. The drop in BlackBerry 10 interest came in the last three months, and its effects are likely to be seen more as the OS moves to production. Meanwhile, several comments about enthusiastic developers who are "amazed" by BlackBerry 10 actually fit with Baird's conclusion that "many developers who planned to jump ship have already made the move, leaving a BlackBerry developer base that is smaller but increasingly loyal." Saunders, however, disagrees that anybody is jumping ship.