SPRINT, SPRIN, SPRI,SPR,SP,S: Alive or Dead?

Implications: Can Sprint improve customer service, fix the management/leadership vacuum problem, and build a new, competitive network?  Sprint CEO, Dan Hesse has perhaps the most difficult job in US telecom today.  Is he doing enough to allow Sprint to stay alive? Will Sprint rise from the ashes like Phoenix and emerge stronger?

Analysis: Don't we really feel for the guy?  He didn't make this mess, but has to fix it.  Did former CEO, Gary Foresee, foresee this coming?  How does a new CEO do what Dan needs to do?  Customer service attitudinal problems are caused by lots of things, right?  Compensation, or lack of it plus erosion of benefits probably are on the list.  Organized labor problems could be partially the problem, or could possibly even be part of the solution.  When the people that do the work are allowed to vent, then some of the pressure is released.  But incentives have to be real and presented to attract and modify the behavior, or it won't change, it will get worse.  Let's say Dan Hesse can fix those people problems, which apparently include high level leadership modifications as well, so what does he do with the technical side of the company?  Will the Xohm WiMax network solve some or all of Sprint's revenue problems?  Maybe.  Probably not, though.  Is there a Charlie Ergen (Dish/Echostar Holding Co) type miraculous fix that will bring Sprint to the technological leadership position that it needs to achieve?  Has anyone gone to the longtime Sprint customers and sought all the reasons they have stayed loyal to Sprint?  My schoolteacher wife has stayed through thick and thin, even with my hounding her to move into the next century with data and Blackberry crack.  She loves her Sprint phone, her service, all of it.  She hates change.  She wants everything to stay easy to use and friendly and all of us can be happy with each other.  Perhaps, there is a message here somewhere for Dan Hesse:  if you know what Sprint does best, then do more of it.  If you know who left and you can give them what they want, then go after them.  They may actually appreciate the attention.  The Hesse commercials are very good, we give Dan that.  The Xohm Network idea has great potential, if he can make it work.  New and exciting products will certainly help the situation also.  For some reason, none of us really want Sprint to go away.  Maybe it is the American way to want to hold on to things American.  Good luck to Mr. Hesse and Sprint.