I'm a little flabbergasted with the turn of events. The comparable-store sales are going well, it's a premium-priced product and with deals announced [Wednesday], both of which could be very positive, you'd think Caribou would be getting closer to breaking even.

These are very expensive stores to build out. They have fireplaces and look like hunting lodges. That's part of the genius of Starbucks. It builds comfortable environments that don't break the bank.

Vitamin water is one of the fastest growing products out there and a lot of the larger beverage companies want to capture some of that magic. Consumers seem to be getting bored with conventional soft drinks, but (plain) water is kind of boring.

The PC industry is champing at the bit to provide downloaded movies that might compete with DVD sales, and Pay-TV services want to add movies to their video-on-demand services, to their new disk-drive-equipped set-top boxes, and to their emerging high-definition TV services.

Technology products are driving our sales. The really hot products at the moment are the digital cameras and MP3 players. We stock every new technology product that comes out and they are really belting out the door.

It is crucial that we time our new products ahead of major events. My biggest challenge is whether our sales strategy will be strong enough to compete with bigger rivals on a global scale.