Sprint May Go Into Extra Innings (Or get rained out)

Implications: Sprint has taken many years and many mis-steps to get where they are today. There is no mention of NexTel which has been a large part of the Sprint problem Years of Very Poor Customer Care, An unclear technology roadmap, Lack of Product focus and an expensive 'Branding' debacle has left Sprint with a loss of identity and customers. 

Analysis:

There are alot of Sprint issues that boil down to focus, being decisive and tactical planning which appeared to get completely lost during the merger with Nextel. Sprint and NexTel individually had focus and some market differentiation but their merger seemed to disrupt both companies and they ended up with a short term, compromised company and plan that resulted in poor service, undecided technology roadmap and brand indecision. It may have also been clear in the beginning that having two distinct networks was never going to be easy to merge or consolidate. But they took so long and kept in this 'limbo' state that investors, customers and employees got impatience and they all started to leave.
It is critical that churn and customer losses get addressed and stablized as each day, Sprint is becoming the growth engine for their competitors. Customer Service, Firm Technology Roadmap and Single Branding has to return or Sprint will continue to lose customers, JV partners and investors. This includes a stronger statement about NexTel and its network. 

I do believe that there have been some initial moves to get there and Dan Hesse had made some very quick decisions but this takes more than one person and many, many employees & consistent efforts to win back customers and the industry at large. There was a time when Sprint and Nextel had clear plans, service differentiation and proud customers; Now they need to lay down their 'internal' swords for in-fighting and unite to face the market together.