MAX Wrap

Where do I start?! What a massive week we've all just had. I'm in the airline lounge at the moment waiting to come home to my wife and kids which is is always the best part, but I've had little time to think about it up until now.

MAX 2008 I think will prove to be a turning point for the Flash mobile developer community. There was definitely a much greater interest in all things mobile this year, following major announcements such as Distributable Player, AppZone and Mobile Packager , AIR Mobile , FP10 , etc. We had good numbers in each of the three Device Central CS4 sessions I ran with Scott and James, and the Tips and Tricks panel (Alessandro, Scott, Darren and me) were always full. I know the other mobile sessions also enjoyed record numbers. There's just been so much movement forward over the last 12 months that has demonstrated once and for all that Adobe is serious about the mobile platform, and are going to be delivering various solutions that address (don't know about "solve" yet, but let's see) many of the issues that the dev community have been going on about for years now.

It was a great time for the mobile team and the dev community as well to spend some time together, forge new friendships and discuss new ways of working together. Thanks to Suzanne, Leisa, Kathy, Meredith, Mark, Peter and all the other mobile team members who encouraged, engaged with and promoted the mobile developers at the conference.

I think though that the final evening "Mobile Networking Party" may just go down in history as the most fun gathering of the Flash Lite community ever. I doubt many of the applications and ideas we demoed on the night got any "mind share" with the partners and attendees, but it was fun getting up and having a go ... Perhaps next year the party can be sponsored by monkeys (see Alessandro's photos to see why ).

And come one, we were all thinking it - how weird was it having Bill two stalls down from the Adobe booth, standing at the Nokia booth with his new Nokia shirt on?? I think though that anyone who thought that we might have seen the last of Bill in the Flash Lite world should have had their fears relieved - Bill will be a valuable asset to the Flash mobile platform in his role at Forum Nokia, and we can all be sure to see his hand in supporting the ecosystem where possible from the "other side of the fence" in the future. Thanks Bill, you're a better drummer than you realise ;)

So, next year MAX stays in California and moves to the City of Angels, Los Angeles. This year there was over 5000 attendees, spanning 3 venues and including probably about 10 after-program parties and events. What can expect in LA? I dare to dream about what we could find ourselves demonstrating on mobile devices with Flash.