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Comment by keithwarren | Hacker News Reader

I almost gave up when he said "I don’t mean to be a pedant but which is it — mobile first or cloud first? Only one thing can be first."

If you don't recognize that those are two different areas then you are either dense, or being intentionally contrarian. Given the earlier statements he made it is clear the latter is certainly true and quite possibly the former as well.

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It has nothing to do with the areas being different or similar. The point is that only one thing can be the first.

You would have a case if he said PC first, Phone first as they are both client consumption mediums.

Mobile first, cloud first is a rehashing of spector if priority for their devices and services. They are saying when we build new versions of Windows or Office we will put the priority on mobile devices. When we build server software, the focus will first be on our cloud varieties.

Take for example Service Bus, software they make for Windows Server and their cloud offering. New features are added first to the cloud offering and later trickle down to the licensed on-premise version.

They are two sides of the same coin. What use (aside from the incredibly useful feature of making actual phone calls) is a smartphone if there aren't services in the cloud that account for the "smart" part?

Lots of use, unless we're lumping the internet and e-mail into "the cloud." I'm quite happy to have my photos stored locally, my e-mails and documents handled by my company's exchange server, etc.

I think unless you or your company is managing their own email servers then yes, email is now "cloud".

Don't most large companies still manage their own e-mail servers?

Sure, but what about everyone else? What's the worldwide install base for smartphones these days, several hundred million if not a billion or more? For all those people that don't work for large companies and their email is synonymous with the cloud.

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