Today, Microsoft announced Windows Azure Toolkits for Devices, consisting of assets for Windows Phone, iOS and a preview of tools for Android.

Using the toolkits, developers can use the cloud to accelerate the creation of applications on the major mobile platforms.

The toolkits leverage the cloud to simplify the complexity of supporting multiple devices. As a common back-end, developers can use cloud services to share common requirements like device notifications, authentication, storage and even higher-level services like leaderboards. At the same time, developers can maximize the performance of each mobile device by writing client code that exploits each platform.

Microsoft released the following software toolkits:

- Windows Azure Toolkit for iPhone (v1.0). Developers can download the package and get started writing iPhone apps on the Windows Azure platform without having to have intimate knowledge of Microsoft tools, such as Visual Studio. Compiled iPhone code libraries to interact with Windows Azure, a sample iOS application, documentation, and a "Cloud Ready" Windows Azure deployment package are included.

- Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone (v1.2). Originally released last month, new developer features available in the next two weeks include integration with the Windows Azure Access Control Service (e.g., a wizard, automatic setup, tooling and code), full support for Windows Azure Storage Queues and an updated user interface for the supporting Web application.

- Windows Azure Toolkit for Android (Prototype Preview). With the forthcoming release this summer, developers will be able to extend the functionality now available for iOS and Windows Phone to the Android platform with the Windows Azure Toolkit for Android.

To simplify the process of setting up services in Windows Azure, Microsoft is also releasing a "Cloud Ready" package for the toolkit. This package is designed to allow someone to quickly get started using Windows Azure without having to open and modify the services.