How quickly Sprint has gone from cutting jobs to cutting checks. Not 24 hours after announcing plans to sack between 2,000 and 25,000 employees, the company said it has agreed to invest another $1.18 billion in WiMax provider Clearwire. That’s a big check to be writing, but then, Sprint is Clearwire’s majority shareholder and the carrier’s plans for differentiated 4G services rely heavily on the outfit’s success.
Ironic, isn’t it, that the nationwide WiMAX network created by the $14.5 billion merger of Clearwire and Sprint Nextel is to be rebranded as “Clear,” since the joint-venture transaction that spawned it as about as muddy as they come.
Among the announcements forgotten for a moment amid the shrieks of agony and general keening on Wall Street today, one from Sprint Nextel announcing a single-market launch of Xohm, its new WiMax wireless service. The company lit up Xohm only in Baltimore today, fulfilling its promise to have the service up and running by the end of September. That said, it’s still nearly a year late.
The cable industry may have finally settled on a wireless strategy–Sprint’s. The Wall Street Journal reports that Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks are discussing a WiMax partnership with Sprint and Clearwire.
To some, Sprint’s longstanding reputation for lousy customer service, poor network coverage, high churn and Keystone Kops-style management disorganization might be a bit–how can I put this delicately–off-putting. The beleaguered company’s subscriber numbers are dropping like failed calls, as are its shares. Sprint’s stock price has fallen nearly 60% over the past 12 months. It [...]
We are now delivering the promise of WiMAX–high-speed, cost-effective wireless broadband access–to businesses and consumers in cities and suburbs around the world.”
– Scott Richardson, general manager of Intel’s Wireless Broadband division, gets a little ahead of himself in November 2005.
Sprint (S) appears to be rethinking its decision to pull the plug on its WiMax joint [...]
With just days to go before Steve Jobs takes the stage in San Francisco for his annual Macworld Expo keynote, the banners are being hoisted at Moscone Center, the site of next week’s expo. And, as often happens, their ambiguous messages are causing feverish speculation among the Mac faithful. The text on this year’s [...]
Sprint Nextel has terminated CEO Gary Forsee’s contract–and not because of excessive calls to customer service. Under pressure from investors over the company’s deteriorating financial performance, Forsee stepped down as chairman and chief executive officer today, leaving as his legacy a lowered third-quarter earnings forecast and net loss of approximately 337,000 subscribers in Sprint’s key [...]
Note: John Paczkowski is on vacation and won’t be writing or posting videos until he returns Monday, Aug. 27.
To keep you abreast of tech news while he’s away, we’re compiling a daily digest of 10 must-read tech stories. We’re calling it the Tech 10 and it will appear in Digital Daily.
Dell says it will [...]
In the lexicon of Google nondenial denials, “we’re not doing a mobile phone” is right up there with the great ones: “We don’t think it’s a competitor to Microsoft Office”; “We do not intend to offer a person-to-person, stored-value payments system“; and, of course, “We have no plans for an IPO.”
According to people familiar with [...]
In August 2005, Google acquired a two-year-old start-up called Android. Founded by Andy Rubin, the guy behind mobile-device maker Danger, Android was rumored to have been developing a mobile phone OS. Google never said much about the acquisition or its plans for Rubin, but he’s been on the company’s payroll ever since…
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
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