And as you do this, you don't see a collision with your software application partners?

For the most part no. When we did the Securent acquisition I didn't receive a single phone call saying, "Hey, this is something really that we want to focus on." I think for the most part our partners see that we can help add value to their applications by providing services that can help link them to other applications in the enterprise.

Network management has always been a challenge for Cisco or any company that acquires 15 other companies a year. Is getting a consistent management interface across all your devices and applications a high priority?

The simple answer is yes, it is a very high priority. I was a Cisco customer for many years before I joined the company in 1995 and I used to complain about Cisco's network management in those days. But my experience running the voice business over the past several years has been night and day. If you look at our unified communications portfolio we have the most complete portfolio of provisioning, management, monitoring . . . the whole management stack. It's been provided by Cisco delivered as part of the solution with every release of our unified communication system. That's the pace we want to set. That's the kind of model that will expand into other areas of the business. We did an acquisition last year of a company called Sheer Networks. This is providing a lot of functionality on the service provider side which is very broad in terms of service management in service provider networks. One of the key things that Sheer provides is event correlation, one of the hardest problems to solve in the network management world. We're seeing great traction with that technology in the market today.