The short-term economic downtown in the wireless sector, exhibited by recent news from Ericsson, Motorola and Nextel, is not dampening Sprint’s enthusiasm or changing its newly announced “data-driven” business strategy. Today, the company launched an m-commerce consulting business, called Sprint
E|Solutions’ Enterprise Mobile Practice, at Spring Internet World.
The new Mobile Practice will deliver a suite of network and device-independent services as well as provide professional services to streamline e-business applications for the wireless Web.
Sprint E|Solutions, introduced in November 2000, joins two business units, Sprint Internet Services and Sprint Enterprise Network Services. It aligns Sprint’s people and resources, already working together on joint initiatives, under one organizational roof.
“Sprint E|Solutions’ focus is on delivering e-enabled features, including productivity, portability, scalability, reliability and security to our customers,” said Keith Paglusch, president, Sprint E|Solutions. “Sprint’s national team of specialized m-commerce consultants work with the customer to help define their needs and then design and implement the best solution to meet their goals for growth.”
The timing of the new business launch comes at less than ideal times, however. On the near term, wireless sales and earnings by the sector’s leading companies are expected to slide. But Sprint’s strategy is more like a cross-country ride–the long-haul approach.
Said William T. Esrey, Sprint’s chairman and CEO in a recent speech, “We must continue to build Sprint PCS into a wireless powerhouse and transition FON Group into a high-growth, data driven business.” Esprey is counting on wireless communications and Internet-related services such as the new Mobile Practice, to be the driver of the company’s future growth.
In conjunction with the new Mobile Practice within E|Solutions, Sprint is expanding its Internet Data Centers. When completed, the company will have 11 operational data centers by year-end 2001 and 18 by 2002, including locations in Asia and Europe. Each data center will offer a variety of services, from collocation to application support, as well as comprehensive IT professional services.
It just announced a strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: SUNW) who help provide the necessary mission-critical, Web-based solutions for the Internet Data Centers.
