>> the arrival of the smartphone changed everything.
>>
>>You've said this several times and I honestly don't follow. How does this affect the DBMS features in SQL Server? Or maybe I've misunderstood your point.
>
>John can certainly speak for himself so I won't try to speak for him. I don't think his point was about SQL Server at all; it was that the focus is increasingly on mobile devices. Here is another data point to add to that POV. The speaker at my local .NET user group last week was a guy named Clark Sell, of Microsoft. He is not the smarmy or sales-y type at all. One of his main points was that users increasingly prefer mobile devices. He said (paraphrased) that desktop apps have not gone away but if you ignore the newer platforms you are doing yourself a disservice. It was not a push for Windows Phone or any other Microsoft technology; it was a high level discussion of current strategic directions.
>
>http://clarksell.info/

The actual growth of strong interest in mobile devices varies depending on classification of users - maybe not as much for different areas of information workers but certainly higher when you get to brand managers, region managers, etc. who are clearly on the road much more often. And you can see that in MS' attention to other areas, such as the ability in SharePoint to render data for devices like the iPad, etc. But still, this is something that varies from company to company. You'd be surprised (or maybe not) at the # of people building external customer portals who don't consider mobile functionality in a 1.0 release. Not that they don't recognize the value, but rather it's just not high on the prioritization.

But in a prior message, he referenced this in conjunction with SQL Server and some of their decisions on functionality in the DBMS. Maybe I misunderstood, as several things were being talked about. I'm not trying to make a particular point - I truly didn't understand what he was saying.