This is similar to Azure Mobile Services[0] right? I've never quite understood the appeal of mobile-backend-as-service. I've developed a few mobile apps but alw

This is similar to Azure Mobile Services[0] right? I've never quite understood the appeal of mobile-backend-as-service. I've developed a few mobile apps but always wrote and hosted my own API/Server/Database for the app to communicate with. These new services seem to focus on giving your mobile app some sort of central blob storage and some push features. I feel like these are nice 'temporary' services which eventually get completely replaced. I'm not suggesting that is bad though. But as someone who came from the business web-app world, I fail to see the value unless you're looking to avoid writing any server code. [0] http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/ http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/