Spent the day at Fidelity Investments listening and participating in a Web Services Summit.  I tried my hardest to get out of it because I did not want to travel during Thanksgiving. The lady next to me on the plane had bronchitis. I felt bad for her. I would hate to be on a cross-country flight coughing the entire way... how miserable! May my Echinacea hold true.

The day went well; I was on a panel with Patrick Gannon, Chris Ferris, Ron Monzillo, and Mark Potts. It was very odd to have a panel before everyone speaks.  Patrick spoke about the need for customers to be involved in the standardization process, Chris spoke on the WS-I basic profile, I did a talk on the big picture of Web services and making WS interoperability a reality, Ron spoke about Web services security, and Mark spoke on Web services management.

I disagree with both Mark and Gartner on one minor point. I believe there is still a marketplace for independent players in the Web services management arena independent of the platform and existing enterprise management players. My caveat& they players must verticalize! Cataloging, Model Views, and other Management functionality can be very industry centric. Most platform players will not verticalize to the extent necessary.

There were snow flurries this morning when I woke up. The sun was shining bright and the snow was coming down gently. It was quite beautiful. I went to dinner with Cezanne, Robin, Jen, and Kelly. It was excellent to see all of you. I enjoyed your company tremendously!

If you do not know Jenifer Riley, you should get to know her... well her art at least! She produces images that evoke harmonic light. I am asking her to make me a sun for my home in Seattle.  As a native Californian, I have a hard time living without lots of sunshine ;). Kelly brought photos of her art. His art is also phenomenal. I already own a piece of his, a period piece, the Big Dig and the Suspension Bridge before they were complete. I miss Boston, my old neighbors, the romanticism of the first snow fall, breakfast at On the Park, and fresh pasta in the North End.

On to Reston tomorrow...