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Some time ago I wrote an article for MacDailyNews suggesting that Apple should buy Sony. Apple lovers were generally shocked and against that idea 10 to 1. Well, having licked my wounds from that article, I am sticking my neck out again….
The big news in Kansas City lately has been about Sprint continuing to bleed customers by the million. Sprint has tried to correct a long corporate tradition of putting its bottom line first and customers last in its planning and business policies. At Sprint it has been understood that customers are suckers to be baited, trapped and exploited. Apple Computer has always put the end user first and the bottom line really takes good care of its self, thank you very much.
Apple is everything Sprint is not. Apple is Innovative, a technology leader, and has world class customer service. The AT&T exclusive on iPhone is going to to expire in a year or so. We know Apple has been looking hard at wireless infrastructure and has expertise in that area. Wireless devices are becoming so common place in our lives, we really couldn’t live without them any more. We open our laptops and expect them to hook up to the internet, without us even thinking about it.
The WiMax or IEEE 802.16 Wireless format is a “last mile” solution. It is sort of a city-wide WiFi network that connects over wide areas with high speed and a lot of bandwidth. Sprint has been working on developing such a network and Apple could buy into that new system by buying Sprint at an attractive price. This would allow Apple TV and the iPhone to have a home network advantage. With control of the device, the iTunes store and the network, Apple could give us the experience we expect from them. Jobs is not one to leave money on the table anyway.
Enter the financial meltdown of the economy in general and Sprint in particular. Sprint is devalued right now and at the right price, the established wireless system and spectrum rights Sprint holds are quite a valuable asset and a good long term investment. Their reputation has made the word “sprint” an albatross and selling the company to a white knight is the only way for the stock holders to come out of this mess.
Sprint should go to Apple and offer an attractive way to sell out to them. Apple has $25 billion in cash and credit to buy Sprint. The management at Apple and the Apple brand name would turn the wireless company we call “Sprint” around quickly. Apple would have to fire the dead wood management and build the world class management team to make the #3 wireless company in the US prosperous again. With long range wireless, the existing cell phone network and a lock on the iPhone, Apple has a reason to consider vertical expansion in the wireless market with the hoard of cash it has accumulated. There are issues with the format of the Sprint Network and the current iPhone but the basic cell network at Sprint is the only thing good about them.
I have stocked up on bandages and my ego has recovered from the last article, so what do you Apple folks thing about this idea?
Greg Mills is a die-hard Macintosh user, MacDailyNews reader, and faux art painter who works in the Kansas City area.
The author of this incredibly dumdum idea has clearly never read anything at all about corporate mergers and takeovers. What he is proposing would be deadly for Apple. Here is why:
Every company has a corporate culture. It travels with the company wherever it goes. If a company full of dickheads is purchased by a happy, successful positive work culture company, do not expect the positive culture to spread into the negative. Fools will leap in where angels fear to tread, and that is certainly a nice thought, but expect failure. What happens instead is that the positive company shoves their negative companion company away at arm’s length in order to stop their infection from spreading.
Three of the worst companies I know of regarding respect of the customer are Direct TV, Circuit City (who deservedly have gone bankrupt this week), and Sprint. And one would want to infect JD Power Award winning Apple with the long standing crap attitude of losers Sprint because WHY? Apple know better, and so should this MBA school dropout. Utter rubbish of an idea.
PS: No offense Greg. We all have our skills and our blind spots. This is why humans thrive on diversity and fail without it.
@derekcurie
Well one way Apple could keep any negative corporate culture from spreading to itself from Sprint (or any acquisition) is to fire all of Sprint’s management.
Then Steve could lay down the law and mandate what the new corporate culture should be for whoever is left. And if they don’t like it then they can be shown the door.
NO WAY! I’ve worked in the wireless industry for 15 years, from Engineer to GM. Sprint has no talent. I worked for them about 13 years ago, and it is still well known among insiders to this day that their engineering, ops, and cust. service groups are the joke of the industry. Apple would be decimated taking them over. Apple has no management strength in what it takes to run a wireless carrier, and neither does Sprint. Apple would go down the tubes.
Sprint would’ve agreed to a buyout at anytime over the last several years, but absolutely nobody wants anything to do with them.
Very bad idea, and not going to happen.
Actually, it’s not a bad idea. Apple would be able to buy Sprint and still have a nice hunk of its $25M (and growing) cash pile.
I am a former Sprint customer who left Sprint solely for the iPhone. As an AT&T;residential customer I can tell you that AT&T;customer service is FAR WORSE than anything I’ve experienced at Sprint. As a matter of fact, until the purchase of Nextel, Sprint had the best customer service and line quality of anyone in the business (IMHO).
I was very disappointed to hear that the former CEO of Sprint passed on the idea of the iPhone. Sprint is actually the better fit of ALL the cellular companies because they foresaw the coming demand for downloadable and streaming video on handheld units and have already built the hooks and infrastructure necessary to accomplish this.
Forget about CDMA and GSM as they are both ancient technologies. With WiMax and the right software in the handset you can bypass both and make calls over the internet a la Skype or Vonage. WiMax is 4G NOW!!!!
If Apple were to propose a friendly merger with stock swap it could then use some of that $25M cash pile to partner with Sprint, Clearwire, Google, Samsung et al to finish the build-out of WiMax here in the US. The rest of the world is already ahead of us in WiMax deployment and will continue to grow accordingly.
Becoming a WiMax partner also helps Apple with its computer hardware growth by allowing ALL Macs to bypass the telephone and cable companies for internet access and do so at speeds faster than what is currently offered (especially by the telcos with their shameful DSL speeds).
So again, you may want to rethink the reasons why this is such a bad idea.
Wimax is weak. All 4G is going to have a tough time working. They won’t be able to charge much. It will only work well in high frequency spectrum. They will need an unbelievable amount of backhaul from the cell sites. Wimax is all marketing. It will only work in very small and densely populated areas with minimal siting challenges. Sprint has been all hype for as long as I can remember. They have failed at EVERY SINGLE strategy initiative. Their “new” alliance with the cable companies is another doomed to failure. They tried that once already.
If another telco will not buy Sprint, what makes you think AAPL would? These fairy tales spread around the web are getting weak.
I see more pros than cons here, but it would mean the iPhone would finally come to South Dakota.
Otherwise, I agree that Nextel messed up Sprint’s customer service in a huge way.
I cannot agree more about Spring being better than AT&T;. The iPhone is great, but AT&T;is more dead spots in more places. The 3G network is often slower than EDGE for a variety of reasons. The acquisition of Sprint may be a pipe dream, but it would be a good move. What a way to really control cell phone/service direction. Apple has always been about the whole experience. Maybe Jobs is just going to sell 50 million iPhones, then after they sell the 50 million iPhones that are incompatible with Sprint, then Apple acquires Sprint, switches the iPhone to their network, but the old phones do not work with Sprint, so the 50 million get to buy new Sprint compatible iPhones. I really like that idea if I am running Apple. Imagine 100 million iPhones sold to 50 million customers. Talk about revenue streams. Not a bad profit. Also you get to control your own phone network. Imagine the possibilities.
Apple should buy AMD for chips to the mac platform, AMD owns ATI then buy Nvidia and become the most important supplier of video cards technology…Papermaster and the Semi Pa team creating specialized chips for mac products will position Apple in the front of the front.
Apple should focus on the creative apps, possibly storage and the enterprise. Buy out adobe, or a cobination of telestream, sedna presenter, active storage inc, or sun microsystems. Nividia looks like a smart buy and possibly infineon and broadcom. With Papermaster at the helm of the chip side of things imagine the possibilities. AMD might be viable as well.
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“If another telco will not buy Sprint, what makes you think AAPL would?”
Um, I guess you flunked cellular service 101. Probably because both ATT and Verizon use GSM and Sprint uses the CDMA protocol.
Current generation iPhones would not necessarily be incompatible with a WiMax solution or left out of the mix. Again, Apple (or a third party) could easily create software that could run on the phone that would allow you to make phone calls via a WiMax internet connection.
And for people who would argue that WiMax would initially be deployed/available only in high-population areas, just save it. ATT’s 3G network isn’t exactly ubiquitous.
The point is that even if you live in an area where WiMax was not currently available you could still use your own WiFi home network to make phone calls with your iPhone (assuming you have a WiFi/Airport setup in the first place)
If Apple must buy a telephone company, I’d say Verizon would be more in-line with where Apple’s hockey puck mouse is headed next. Verizon’s already got (some) 4G stuff in place, it’s a a pretty well-known and not-spiraling-down-the-hole telco and it’s actually got great coverage in my area (that’s one reason none of my family have iPhones). They’d even get Verizon’s FiOS networks in the package and that’s great for delivering content to Macs and AppleTVs alike (I should know). The main problem I see is that Verizon is worth considerably more than Sprint. It would seriously eat up Apple’s cash reserves to acquire it, and probably deplete them and start working on a share trade for the execs of Verizon or something. Having been a Mac user through the good times as well as the bad, I’ve started to believe that if it’s Apple, even the seemingly impossible can be achieved.
This is actually a good idea..You pay sprint for their current income stream, there is no goodwill value left. Pitch the SPRINT name and create a name easily identifiable with the Apple brand.
AT &T;is too maxed out to handle the landslide of subscribers . -and they will fight Apple tooth and nail, poison pills and all.
Sprint has 1/2 millon idle numbers (so to speak)
This is a good idea but your view of Sprint is skewed. Yes they have had customer service issues, billing issues, network issues, etc… BUT so has EVERY other wireless carrier out there. Reading through the many posts and lack of Telecom wisdom it’s safe to say the complaint regarding CDMA is weak. If CDMA is such a problem then why would Asia embrace the technology? Check where your phone was made! Seriously.
The time is right for Apple to step up and buy Sprint and do exactly what many are saying, redfine the leadership from the top down, I believe Sprints current CEO is on the right track and without help they will bring the company back and that will also be in part to the CFOs efforts, he’s a real hatchet man but knows what to do where and you will see Sprint come back into profitability, they will rebuild the Nextel brand and find an amiable solution for that Network in time.
What I do doubt is that any of the Apple Fans will agree with this option because of the diehard allegiance many seem to have with AT&T;, I really don’t understand it at all because AT&T;has a terrible 3G footprint and that is without dispute, customer service is equally terrible and in regards to the plans they offer, no comparison to Sprint, the $99 unlimited plan is the best available bar none.
Steve Jobs, if your listening, buy Sprint and make this the No 1 wireless company in the US and drive your wireless brand internationally. It’s time!
Note to “Let’s rethink this” – Verizon is a CDMA carrier, just as Sprint and Alltel are.
No doubt, Sprint has been beaten up in the press – but remember the time lag between reality and perception. At this point, Sprint is delivering excellent customer service – and the network provides me with coverage unmatched by ATT here in the South. No doubt about it, several years ago, Customer Service was terrible – but they’ve obviously made changes. Won a few JDPower awards lately as well. Also, as someone above made the point, Sprint has been at the forefront of data applications of all types. Sprint is going through a rough patch, but i’m buying stock at these prices.
It is an excellent idea. Sprint stock is on sale and under valued. The CDMA network today is built for data. WiMax is the next generation for data and Sprint is 2 years ahead of Verizon and AT&T;with this 4th generation technology that will launch as a consumer play. WiMax plays well into Apple’s gamming portfolio and competitive direction of the iPhone and IPod against Sony.
Sprint would benefit from Apples customer service record and product development while Apple benefits from Sprints leadership in a superior communication network.
Quote:
“Note to “Let’s rethink this” – Verizon is a CDMA carrier, just as Sprint and Alltel are.”
You are correct. Thank you for correcting me on a point I at one time knew off the top of my head.
Still, I don’t think Verizon would want to buy Sprint because they would then have to upgrade their entire network to match what Sprint currently offers to their customers and I don’t think they are willing to make that kind of investment after a hypothetical purchase of Sprint.
FIOS would be the holy grail of high speed internet but the problem is that unless you leave in a new housing community it would leave out too much of current phone subscribers to lay the fiber from the telco to each potential customer’s home due to the expense required. That is why there is such a push by Sprint and others for WiMax as the cost/outlay is substantially less.
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“Sprint is going through a rough patch, but i’m buying stock at these prices.”
You are not alone there. I have been buying Sprint stock for some time now and even a small ‘pop’ will bring a nice return with the recent purchases I’ve made over the last few weeks at these prices.
My apologies as I meant to put this comment in my previous post to you. Nonetheless, I hope you (we) get a nice return on investment!
Hi Greg,
That’s an interesting idea, but it’s sort of like Ford buying the freeway system or to buy a toll bridge. I personally think that Apple needs to concentrate on manufacturing fantastic electronic devices and not spread out into the mobile carrier market.
If they want to eventually make an iPhone that will work on Sprint, Verizon, and the other carrier’s networks, that would be cool, and it would be beneficial to Apple to consider that, but to actually own a portion of the network that it wants to be in is ridiculous.
As a handset manufacturer, they may have some influence over carriers plans for a 4G network or would be able to figure out a better way of working with what we have.
The only thing Apple immediately needs for the Iphone is complete nationwide coverage. All Apple has to do is let the contract with AT+T expire. Buying another major corporation would be a drain on Apple management time. A complete waste.
You guys do know that Sprint is at 2.84 a share and they only have 2.86 billion shares, Sprint is worth only 8.1 billion I’m sure Sprint will not be satisfied with 8.1 more like 16 billion or so. I do not think its a wise investment though for apple they could do something else with their money.
Yes i agree apple is not supposed to buy sprint
Jokes