Todd Abbott, the former Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) big cheese whose defection to Symbol Technologies Inc. (NYSE: SBL) we revealed last week (see Symbol's Cisco Snatch), got on the phone with us this week to talk about his move.

As you might expect, Symbol's new head of worldwide sales is going to use some of his five and a half years of international experience to try to broaden Symbol's predominantly North American customer base.

Which is all well and good, but really and truly there was only one question on our lips: Will Symbol, which has already managed to tempt two major executives away from Cisco (see Cisco's Nuti Moves to Symbol), try for the hat trick?

Abbott doesn't rule it out.

"It's always good to bring in new talent," he says.

— Dan Jones, Senior Editor, Unstrung www.unstrung.com