I can't wait to get started.' The sentiment struck me pretty hard as I struggled to get some sleep on a packed red-eye flight leaving Las Vegas at 11 o'clock at night.

Adobe staged its MAX 2006 developer and customer conference under the theme 'Beyond Boundaries' to showcase the company's emerging technologies and provide a glimpse of future innovations. Adrian Bridgwater attended to drink it all in.

'The innovation we are most excited about,' said Bruce Chizen, Adobe's CEO, 'is Apollo, which we believe will revolutionize the way the world will interact with the Web in the future.' He was speaking at MAX 2006, the biggest ever Adobe developer conference, in Las Vegas.

There's always an inherent danger, for any company getting behind a meta-theme like 'revolutionizing how the world engages with ideas and information ­ anytime, anywhere and through any medium,' that it has defined a wish rather than a reality. The thousands of developers assembled in the keynote hall of The Sands Expo Center here in Las Vegas are undoubtedly united in a desire to decide for themselves which applies. This morning, at the opening keynote that began just moments ago, they got their chance.

'MAX 2006 is both a milestone in the integration of Adobe and Macromedia, and a reflection of what's possible when all these creative forces come together,' said Kevin Lynch, Adobe SVP & Chief Software Architect today here in Las Vegas, where Adobe is staging its first MAX developer and customer event since joining forces with Macromedia.

'By creating a specialized, consumer-friendly application like Digital Editions, Adobe is ensuring publishers can securely deliver high-impact content to the widest possible audience, across hardware platforms, operating systems and devices,' said Shantanu Narayen, president and COO at Adobe, as he today introduced at MAX 2006 the public beta of Adobe's new Rich Internet Application (RIA) built from the ground up for digital publishing.