[kevinbob8]

Sprint has the most important thing a company needs to survive, ESPECIALLY in a down economy: billions in cash reserves. That's all the government bailouts are giving companies; operating cash. You can lose and lose and lose money (remember Amazon?) but if you have enough cash to continue operating and your numbers begin to trend up (fingers crossed for 2009) you're in no trouble at all.

Sidenote: It ought to be stated that directly comparing the actual stock prices of companies means absolutely nothing, though the percentage changes (with stock splits and other relevant changes factored in) can be helpful. Going bankrupt means running out of cash reserves, and with that kind of liquid asset wealth, Sprint has little to worry about for some time.

That being said, Sprint's plan for success:

Make as much money as possible with iDEN, whether that means operating it, selling it wholesale, selling the rights to the Nextel name to another company; just take the hit and do it. That move has only hurt Sprint (except for their NASCAR sponsorship). Fix it now for the long-term.

Aggressively advertise the PRICE DIFFERENCES. They have been doing this with the "Save $240/mo over AT&T/VZW," and they need to keep doing more. This is the single greatest advantage Sprint has over the other carriers.

Keep customer service as great as possible, and if layoffs must occur, retain talented over low-wage employees.

Do everything they can through Clearwire (or Clear as it's going by now) to build out the 4g WiMax network as fast as possible. Once the network is available in a significant number of metro areas, fold it in to the existing data plans for $5 or $10/mo for mobile data.

Sidenote 2: Clearwire is 51% owned by Sprint, effectively making it a part of their own company. The upside to this is that Sprint can leverage the greatest benefit from an enterprise that has several cash-loaded fellow investors (e.g. Google).

Sprint just may be the best cellular service provider in the states, so for management issues to bring them down would simply be tragic. I've read interviews and I've seen the commercials; I have faith in Dan Hesse.