Speaking at the National Press Club on Friday, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has made  remarks to the effect that the Android operating system at the foundation of the Open Handset Alliance (of which Sprint is a founding member) is “not good enough to put the Sprint brand on it”.
These remarks fly in the face of earlier comments made during trade shows earlier in the year regarding the future availability and viability of the platform on the carrier, with Hesse still stating that Sprint will offer an Android-based device in the future with no further elaboration on his seemingly drastic change in position.
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Wow. And Windows Mobile is good enough for Sprint? This just confirms my intention to abandon Sprint just as soon as my contract runs out. What a classic example of a once-great company run into the ground by incompetent management. It saddens me.
add one more to sprints industry leading customer churn rate… despite being the only carrier to offer reception like bottomline says, they sure do have difficulty keeping customers. you will soon see sprint going from $3.25 share price and hemorrhaging customers to taking over the wireless industry by storm!!!
Hi, my name is BJ DeHut, and I’m a representative for Sprint. We appreciate the discussions that Dan Hesse’s comments have caused, but we believe his words were taken out of context about Android. Here is a statement from James Fisher, a member of Sprint’s communications organization, who was in the room at the National Press Club for Dan Hesse’s speech:
“I’m in Sprint’s communications organization, and I actually was in the room at the National Press Club for Dan Hesse’s speech. As with any single comment from a speech, it’s important to understand the context. Rather than criticize Google, Sprint is a partner with Google (it’s the default search provider on Sprint phones) and we are a very strong supporter of the Android community as a charter member of the Open Handset Alliance. We are interested in developing an Android-based handset, but we would want to make sure it fully leverages all of the advances of Sprint’s current handsets and the data strength of our wireless network. We have a unique approach to making data use easy, intuitive and simply priced. I think what Dan meant is that, only when we are certain we have fully leveraged all the advantages of Android with the advantages we’re known for, that’s when we’d introduce our Android handset. And as for speculation from anonymous folks about our plans, industry folks always trade gossip, but it’s not always true. ”
Source: http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/sprint-ceo-disses-google-s-android-phone-wishes-he-had-one-s-/page/1#comment-4905d5d314b9b932003811a4
If you have any further questions about Dan Hesse’s comments about the Android phone, feel free to email me at BJD@Sprint.com
That’s what I was leaning towards believing, they already said an Android device will come next year they just don’t want another immature device like the Instinct
BJ, we noted Sprint’s membership in the OHA in our original reporting.
The timing of these remarks is suspect. If Sprint is an OHA member, why did Sprint not devote the resources to improving Android to be “Sprint ready”, or at the level Sprint expects?
Certainly, I could see Sprint wanting to work with their partners to ensure that Sprint TV, Sprint Navigation, Picture Mail, Video Mail, and all Android services work properly… but that’s not a failure of Android.
To simply put the quote in additional context is not enough. To have the OHA give a progress report on CDMA device timeframes would be. We haven’t heard a peep out of the OHA on CDMA, nor have we from any device partner. As one of the few who is correcting some of the common misconceptions about Android… this is one that simply remains unanswered.
Sprint doesn’t have to criticize the OHA (though, it’s pretty clear that in any context, the statement was a criticism). As a member of the OHA however, Sprint should work to break through the OHA’s wall of silence, and clarify the status of the goal to get Android on CDMA carriers.
P.S. Rather than have people in Sprint’s communications organization speculate about Dan Hesse’s comments… why not have Dan Hesse address his own comments? We’re far from alone in spotlighting this statement, and even if we weren’t, it’s certainly a situation for which a few sentences of dialogue, would calm tensions all around.
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