Possible Sprint Buy-out by Deutsche Telekom

[bushd]

Actually in regards to the hiring and not selling comment that is exactly what happens. It is happening with Toys R Us. We were publically traded and got bought out because we were an in the red company. After restructuring we're now making a good profit and in the process of setup for sell off.

[Slwitek]

Does T-Mobile have "real" picmail? Cant get Sprint's snafoo out of my head!

[tech]

sprint will never agree to a buy out!!!

[bushd]

They don't have to agree to a buy out. There is take-overs and this happens all the time. If you have enough cash you buy enough stock and control 50.01% of the company then you effectively own it since your vote automatically wins.

[rip1up]

I also work for Sprint...although I'm just a pee-on i have to say, No way. The number one reason.....Wi-max. sprint is banking on being the only nationwide carrier to be able to offer this technology. They own nearly all the available wi-max bandwidth. that has been their (corporate and stock holders) focus until lately. Wi-max will be operational nationwide by the end of the year. I just hope the new pricing and whatever else they do to decrease the loss of customers, i do before my job is cut.

[JeffdaBeat]

I guess I'll chime in...

I work for Sprint, but I think a lot of you reps are looking at this entirely too idealistically. Just like Bushd said, buyouts happen all the time and remember that Sprint's stock is pretty low. I am not an economics whiz, but I am pretty sure that unless they decide to go private, they can be bought by anyone. Then again, if that were completely possible, Microsoft would have purchased Yahoo! by now.

Thing is, although Sprint has had a troubled past, I think they are going to give Dan Hesse a shot and turning it all around. My Sprint reps can vouch that things have really changed just from our end since he's come into power. The idea to close a lot of the third party sales stores and even the under performing corporate stores was just a smart move. AT&T did the same thing and it drove a lot of business into the stores they controlled. I think that once these changes have finally finalized themselves, people are going to be drawn to Sprint because our plans have always been the best in the business.

The thing is, users and shareholders have to be patient. We will probably lose more customers for the next year, but I think that will slow and turn around as we see things change everyday.

Do I want to be bought be T-Mobile...I dunno. Maybe they would get rid of iRMS and fire everyone who ****s my commission checks up every month. But I want to give Sprint a chance to keep going. We are the only cell company that doesn't have deep pockets of money from parent companies and look how well we've done.

[GoodThings2Life]

Buyout? No way. Sprint isn't going anywhere.

First of all, if you look at tech industry stock trends since Christmas, EVERYONE has had drops in the 30-40% range, so Sprint's stock price being low right now isn't anything to be surprised or concerned about.

Second, Sprint's biggest fault is customer service, plain and simple. They have decent products, decent service, and excellent prices (esp. compared to AT&T and Verizon). Their layoffs and corporate restructuring efforts prove that they're willing to make changes, and their initiative to go unlimited for cheap shows they're able and willing to compete.

Now that the Mogul 3.35 firmware update is out, most people are satisfied with it. If Sprint can work with HTC to get the Touch updated to Rev. A, and get some of their Blackberry models up-to-date, they'll continue to have a successful product line. I don't even think they need to have an iPhone contract, just competitive devices, which means they need to develop stronger ties to Microsoft, HTC, and Samsung, among others.

So really it comes back to is the need to be focusing on customer service procedures. They need to get their techs up to speed, fix the nightmare that is their call-tree system when you call them, and eliminate the billing fiascoes that people complain about.

[neodorian]

That would be a shame. They are the only company with those low data rates and high data speeds. They also are the only major US carrier not yet implicated in illegal domestic spying so for that reason also I have seen little other choice. I personally won't pay my money to a company who uses political clout to get away with treason.

[cykococo]

Originally Posted by dmaldo

I work for Sprint. This won't happen. A lot of people (especially with other carriers) like to "speculate" about Sprint and it's direction. I can assure you that Sprint has no plans on being bought out. The recent lay off's and cut in costs were a business decision by Sprint in order to keep things flowing properly in the right direction. You don't hire a new CEO and a whole new batch of advisors (vp, mvp etc.) and sell the company. Sprint is going in the right direction. WiMax will be launching in 2008. Sprint will have new Sprint walkie talkie phones coming out this year that will be running Rev. A. Which also means there is a possiblity that you will be able to use Direct Connect on your Mogul. Sprint is going to be the leader in the wireless industry once again and it will happen sooner than everyone thinks.

So forget about Sprint ever giving up on CDMA (At least until they convert everything to WiMax and you are able to do voice of WiMax. It will end up being CDMA/WiMaX network I think.) They are not going to be bought out. Customer should feel excited about being with Sprint even though there are tough times, Customer Service is going to improve a great deal and you are going to experience being a customer of the leading wireless country in America.

With that said. NO SPRINT ISN'T BEING BOUGHT OUT.

More importantly, no one has the kind of cash flow to buy out Sprint. Same speculation right now with Best Buy buying out Circuit City or someone else buying out CC. The only one with enough cash is direct competition that would have to shut down locations in order to not compete with itself.

[mobo]

This is what a company does before being bought out, but you must remeber the reason for the sale. Sprint's name and upcoming technology (wimax). Most likely T Mobile would go away and Deutsche TeleKom would run Sprint on CDMA. This would be a probably be a good thing for Sprint employees as the new company would be investing in it's new product and good for us customers as they would want to increase marketshare.

With Sprint losing massive customers each quarter, and after a large layoff Sprint is ripe for a takeover. Stockholders will demand a change. Watch the stock price now, if it rises DT is on the move.

Mobo