We saw products in use that were pretty impressive. There was a lot of new stuff on the presence-management side, and Cisco should be able to tie these things together better than a lot of other companies could because of their comprehensive systems.

Cisco has sort of straddled the fence with working with Microsoft. This is another approach that moves toward a Linux-based, appliance-based model for voice applications that should fit into most businesses' strategies whether they love or hate Microsoft.

It's a natural add-on to services that we're already providing. Video is just another application you can put on the network.

We pretty much sleepwalked through the entire first half. We just dug ourselves too big a hole.

When you lose a head coach a month before the season, that's a pretty big speed bump for a team to face. The captains handled it as complete professionals and defused any minor problems that could have occurred. As a result, the team is really focused, committed, and excited about the season right now.

We're pretty mad at ourselves for playing so bad.