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Originally Posted by 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.
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Dan Hesse seems like a smart guy and hopefully he can get it turned around. I think a lot of poor decisions were made under the last CEO. The lack of hardware/advertising/SERO plans has hurt Sprint IMHO.
I think Dan tried to change sprints image by doing a media blitz for the Instink. Too bad it turned out to be such a crummy phone. I don't think advertising Winmo phones would help out the cause all that much. Let's face it, Winmo phones NEED to be tweaked and modified. The TP has it fair share of problems out of the box. A normal user won't know how to mod and hack the phone just to get it to work like normal.
Contrast that with a Blackberry that just works out of the box. You set it up and go. Sprint needs to build a solid customer base just like AT&T has. It was created by having "cool teeny" bopper phones for the most part. If I were to ask the average person what Sprints signature phone is/was..what would the answer be? AT&T has the Iphone, T-mobile has the sidekick and now the first android phone, Verizon...same as Sprint.
I think SERO was a huge mistake as well that really hurt sprints bottom line. I'm in no way, shape or form trying to hate on SERO or turning this into a SERO debate. With that said, I think offering these dirt cheap plans has cost Sprint a lot of money. The infrastructure for data is there, but they aren't making the money like they should be by charging more money. I think Sprint has gotten a lot of customers from it but are hurting now. I don't believe it was controlled very well and it was exploited in some cases. Even now, without SERO, the plans are cheaper than any other carrier.
I really hope Dan does get things turned around. Personally, I like Sprint and wouldn't ever switch. I think customer service has been improving for the most part. When times get tough, you gotta focus on your customer base and work your way up. I believe that is what Dan is doing.
I found a comment my room mate made about Sprint commercials interesting. He said out of all the carriers, he likes the Sprint commercials with Dan Hesse the best. He felt like it wasn't gimmicky at all and was just trying to be real and tell you how it is. Unlike the Verizon guy saying "can you hear me now" or the whole "If there was 1 phone left who would get it commercial." I believe that one was verizon as well..