Sprint’s Q1 Losses = High Value Proposition for Customers

I think we all remember where we were when we first heard that Sprint was going to buy Nextel. A CDMA-technology-based company buying an IDEN-technology-based company? In what parallel universe was that a good idea?

Yes, yes, it’s true. High paid, well educated CEO’s decided some time back that Nextel was a smart acquisition. The rest of us mere masses shook our heads in collective amazement that such a purchase could happen in any possible world, including the one I visit in my sleep where the Boston Celtics actually win a playoff game away from home court.

Such as it is, Sprint’s Q1 performance was horrible; they lost over a million customers which translated into a $500 million overall loss.

But they say character is determined in how one behaves during difficult times, and when I saw Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse on a television commercial offering the wireless equivalent of the Ark of the Covenant, ergo the Simply Everything Plan, I was proud of Sprint and wish them well.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Sprint has come out with a single rate plan that offers it’s customers unlimited everything…period. Now that is the deal we all wish we had with our carriers. No caveats, no small print, no exceptions.

There is talk that Sprint plans to sell Nextel and if it is able to weather the storm and remain solvent, Sprint could possibly win the hearts of many more customers due to its dramatic Simply Everything offering.

It does make one wonder though. One would think that these companies are run by the smartest people in the room, yet Sprint made a silly purchase, Palm is building new devices on old software and Motorola’s CEO’s are jumping ship in lockstep despite inventing one of the most popular cell phone models ever.