The theme of BorCon 2002 is "Advancing the Art of Software Development", and the theme of this year's opening keynote was inspired by James Bond. David I in full tux was "00DavidI", "Licensed to Code".

Four gunshots where fired, and with each one, the letters B O N D (in the Borland name) where lit up on screen. Then David I shot and killed an attacking Ninja (Michael Swindell).

When all the gunshots had quited down, Dale and David I started the real action... Talking about what will happen during the week in Anaheim and what Borland is doing to advance the art of software development.

Blake Stone (Java Chief Scientist) demonstrated bits and pieces from the upcoming JBuilder 7. The features shown included:

• error discovery as you're coding (without having to compile), with intelligent suggestions on what needs to be done to fix the error
• select a block of code and automatically surround it with a try-catch block that magically figures out what type of exceptions to handle
• select a statement and make it into a local variable
• deployment to a self contained EXE (you will of course need the Java run-time installed)

Chuck Jazdzewski (RAD Chief Scientist) demonstrated some very cool upcoming .NET support. He built a simple application on his laptop, ran it, then copied the same EXE to a Microsoft cell phone, ran it, then copied it to a TabletPC and ran the app on it. During his demo he got a call from Anders Hejlsberg asking for assistance with his Monday .NET keynote (all in good fun of course - even Anders busted up laughing).

John Thomas (RAD Product Manager) showed a native multi-player Symbian C++ game (again Bond inspired - Domination from "Never Say Never") running on a Nokia 9290 Communicator (the US version of the 9210). Dale was fighting for domination with a couple of other people in the audience, also equipped with Nokia 9290 Communicators.

Then David I announced this year's awards, including Borland Technology Partner awards, trainer of the year award, and customer solutions award:

• RAD BTP of the Year - TurboPower
• Java BTP of the Year - /n software
• Trainer of the Year - Alain "Lino" Tadros
• Learning Partner of the Year - Pillar Technology
• Solutions Partner of the Year - Kazoo Software
• Customer Solution of the Year - HP and BofA

Lino got to accept two awards (one personal, and one for his company)

Dale then proceeded to present his very special award. This year's recipient of the President's Award was Danny Thorpe - Borland's .NET Architect (the crowd stood up, cheered, and applauded when Danny accepted his award).

Danny accepting his well deserved award

Last, but not least, Dale brought out a huge cannon that shot "Borland Developer Network - Made in Borland" T-shirts across the auditorium - some of them made it all across - over a hundred feet.

Dale's wireless deployment system for Borland Softwear - be sure to click the image for the priceless video!

Afterwards at the welcome reception, Microsoft .NET tie-dye shirts were given away, video games played, lots of food and drink consumed.

Make sure to check out the key notes by Anders Hejlsberg (Microsoft), James Gosling (Sun) and Chris Thomas (Intel).