Dave: “Good morning everyone, including professional journalists. ”

Good morning to you, Dave.

There's one problem with being at any conference with a badge that has PRESS written on it in inch-tall letters–it scares away the people you want to talk to and attracts mostly the ones you don't (well, at least the ones lower down your priority list–I'll talk to anyone).

I did get to talk to some interesting folks here at the AMR Research conference welcoming reception last night–some folks from ILOG and Peregrine Systems, in particular. Talk was, unsurprisingly, about how brutal the market has been for everybody in the tech food chain–including our hosts, the analysts.

It's going to be 108 here (again) today, so I doubt I'll be taking any long walks up Camelback. I've got a full day of meetings in any case.