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Chuck Levine, chief sales and marketing officer: On Sprint's advantage over the competition: We have a huge advantage over our competitors. We have a national network with a single technology. The competition could offer something like the wireless Web, but only in certain localities. And it works differently in some places than others. On how the strategy was born: We began thinking about it in the middle of 1997. We launched in September, 1999. We finalized the marketing plan about six months before the launch. It was a matter of strategy to make the technology available on all phones. It was a corporate commitment. It started with the belief that there was a competitive advantage to be had here. Sprint was on a roll adding lots of customers. It was a huge risk to take the gamble that this would be a success. We invested almost all of our marketing initiative and effort into communicating this thing. On the importance of the Web: Almost everything that we do now interacts in some way with the Web. It's almost impossible any longer to create a product where you haven't thought through the implications on the Web. Thousands of people a day, hit the e-mail button directly to the phone. You don't need a PC any longer to have e-mail. When Sprint knew it could make it's wireless Web plan work: The "Aha" happened when we were working with the networking people. In the late spring of 1999, after marketing made a presentation to chief officers in the Sprint boardroom, the networking technicians were not ready to commit that they could build Web software across our network. Four weeks later, in a similar meeting, CTO Keith Paglusch was sitting next to me at the time. His folks were delivering a network status report. He leaned over and said, "This one we will get done. We can deliver it." They delivered by September. If they had delivered two months later, we would have had to wait until next year. And if we pulled out, retailers [would have been furious]. It's similar to disappointing [Wall Street] analysts -- you get murdered. Michael Coad, vice-president for subscriber-equipment product realization: On the pervasiveness of Sprint's browser phones: We wanted it in every one of our phones at all price points. We viewed the browser in the phones as a tool, not just a feature. Some [phone manufacturers] said, "Well, we'll put this in high-end phones but not low-end phones." That wasn't enough. Our intent was to get it very widespread at the time we launched the service. On key innovations in the technology: We helped develop "Quick Net Connect." When a [PC] modem talks to the network, [that screeching sound] can take 30 seconds. We didn't want users to have to take 30 seconds. We worked with 3Com to come up with way to bypass the modem training session and go straight to the Internet. It allows a user to get to Internet in about five seconds. On features available through Sprint's service: The traditional flavors were e-mail, news, weather, sports, and stocks. We have Amazon.com, Yahoo!, AOL, Afronet, price comparisons.... With Ameritrade and Amazon.com, we were the first to allow two-way transactional services. When we came out with the wireless Web, we didn't think our job was done. We put all the building blocks in place for a platform to grow upon. |
