Adobe MAX 2006 Begins

So MAX kicked off with a bang this morning at 8:30.  Hosted at the lovely and expansive Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, over 2000 developers and designers have converged in one location to see and experience the outer edge of what’s possible beneath the umbrella of Adobe. The morning kicked off with a performance by the Blue Man Group followed by a parade of keynote speakers which included Kevin Lynch, Ben Forta and Sho Kuwamoto among others.

Unlike a lot of typical conference keynote blather, this presentation was all about showing rather than telling. There were some very impressive demos ranging from Fireworks/Photoshop integration to the coolest new kid on the block, Apollo which is a framework for delivering Rich Applications to the client desktop. By far, I think this technology is the standout for me so far and I can’t wait to learn more about it as the week goes on. I’ll be sitting in on Mike Chambers session tomorrow to get schooled.

Additionally, there were sneak-peeks into some future product enhancements that will totally rock our world. Much of Adobe's focus at this point is about connecting all of the big pieces of the puzzle together. Whether it's being able to open Photoshop documents in Fireworks or Flash and maintain all layers and settings, or further intertwining ColdFusion and FlexBuilder, they are making some amazing strides at making it all make sense together.

Stay tuned for more news from MAX...