If you didn't have the opportunity to attend Lotus DevCon, I strongly encourage you to at least check out the Webcast of the opening session at http://www.lotus.com/DevCon. It will help give you perspective on the latest Lotus technologies as well as the direction of the industry. If I had to give you a short summary of the main thrust of the opening session and the show in general, it would be "Web services." This is definitely one of the next big things, and you can find more information about Lotus and Web services in Steve Niles' feature article from last month's issue of DominoPower at http://www.dominopower.com/issues/issue200106/webservices001.html.

DevCon to me is about two key things: getting an idea of the direction that Lotus and the industry is heading and deciding what technologies I want to focus on in the coming months. I'll go over this below by giving you some of my favorite quotes from the opening session and my own personal list of what I'm going to be focusing on in the next six months.

My favorite quotes
The opening session was one of the best I've attended in recent memory. There were a number of good quotes from the session that really struck a chord with me.

Quotes from Jeanette Horan
Jeanette Horan, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Development and Support, had this to say:

• "You'll see a lot more than Notes and Domino at this event."

• "I strongly encourage you to expand your horizons."

Quotes from Al Zollar
Al Zollar, Lotus President and CEO, painted his vision for the future by discussing new technology, emphasizing the importance of Web services and open standards, and by reaffirming Lotus' position as the dominant collaborative software maker in the industry. Here are a few choice quotes from his keynote:

• "We believe that Web services, existing and future, will dramatically change the future landscape of computing."

• "We believe that standards set you free."

• "Rnext is a substantial new release."

• "It's not about changing existing applications, it's about changing how existing applications are exposed."

Quotes from Craig Smelser
Craig Smelser, Vice President of Product Management, delved into the more technical aspects of Web services. He had a couple great lines: