Google’s AdMob Now Ready To Serve Ads To Windows Phone 7 App Developers

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 is getting a vote of confidence from a company not usually counted among its allies.

Google’s AdMob mobile advertising division is ready to introduce a software development kit that will let mobile application developers put AdMob ads in applications designed for Windows Phone 7 for the first time, the company plans to announce Tuesday. AdMob also plans to take the wraps off new SDKs for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android developers that brings their ads closer to HTML5 compliance, said 
Mark Schaaf, engineering director for AdMob and one of the company’s earliest employees.

Mobile advertising is still pretty small compared to Google’s desktop-Web advertising juggernaut, but it’s a more and more attractive way for mobile developers to make money on their games and news applications without having to charge for the app. AdMob has been serving Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Android developers for years now, but started to receive more and more requests from those developers for Windows Phone 7 support, since many of the larger developers want to get their apps onto as many platforms as possible, Schaaf said. Microsoft’s new partnership with Nokia also stands to open up those developers to a host of new devices, although the details of that plan will take some time to unfold.

AdMob also supports WebOS applications, and with the move to support Windows Phone 7 that leaves RIM’s BlackBerry software as the lone holdout among the major mobile operating system companies. Despite the fact that BlackBerry remains one of the most popular operating systems in the U.S., Admob hasn’t gotten the same level of demand from its customers for BlackBerry support as it has other platforms, Schaaf said.

“We’ve talked a lot about BlackBerry,” he said. “We’ve had some projects we’ve started on the blackberry side, and will (provide support) if it starts to make sense for our developers.”

Schaaf said the HTML5 enhancements could allow advertisers and mobile developesr to incorporate richer ads into their apps, such as, for example, an ad for a gas station that integrates with a phone’s compass to point the way toward the closest station.