People began lining up outside Sprint stores in New York, Boston and Cherry Hill, New Jersey, at 5 p.m. yesterday. Sprint, which has trained staff for weeks and held promotional events with the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, may sell almost 200,000 phones this weekend, some analysts estimate.
Palm aims to win back customers for smart phones, a market it helped create, after devices from Apple and Research In Motion Ltd. prevailed with newer features and operating systems. Palm hired retired iPod chief Jon Rubinstein in 2007 to [...]

Sprint, which will carry the Pre exclusively at least through the end of the year, lost 1.25 million of its valuable contracted subscribers during the first three months of the year - even worse than the 1.1 million that fled to other wireless carriers in the fourth quarter.
Hesse said the Pre gives Sprint an opportunity to show off its competitive voice and data networks and service plans - things that could help the company retain subscribers and lure new ones. He said Sprint has “vastly” improved its customer service and network performance.
“We are a very, very different company than we [...]

Investors responded by sending shares of the nations third-largest wireless provider up sharply. Sprint shares gained 53 cents, or 11.4 percent, to $5.20 in afternoon trading after reaching as high as $5.48 earlier in the session.
The Overland Park, Kan.-based company lost $594 million, or 21 cents per share, during the three months ending March 31, versus a loss of $505 million, or 18 cents per share, a year ago.
Not including one-time charges, Sprint said it would have earned 3 cents per share, compared with the 4-cent loss analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had predicted.
The company said it recorded a $327 [...]

Thats a change from recent years, when flashy new phones and data services hogged the spotlight. This year, the developments have been more appropriate for a recession: People who are least able to pay are getting cheaper service.
In traditional prepaid service, which generally has been marketed to people with iffy credit, customers buy minutes in advance, and often are charged a fee for each day they use the phone.
The big change this year has been the rise of prepaid plans with no limit on the minutes used.
In January, Sprint Nextel Corp. made a bold move to capture a larger share [...]

Even so, Sprint Nextels condition has been so poor that investors were able to seize on news that wasnt as bad as usual. Sprints adjusted loss beat Wall Street expectations, and the company predicted fewer customer losses in the coming year. That sent Sprint shares soaring 54 cents, or 20 percent, to end at $3.25.
During a conference call with analysts, Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse said he still wasnt happy with his companys performance but said he believed Sprints efforts to rebuild the companys image were gaining traction.
“The improvements we have made with the customer experience are the foundation for [...]

Even so, Sprint Nextels condition has been so poor that investors were able to seize on news that wasnt as bad as usual. Sprints adjusted loss beat Wall Street expectations, and the company predicted fewer customer losses in the coming year. That sent Sprint shares soaring 50 cents, or 18 percent, to $3.21 in afternoon trading.
During a conference call with analysts, Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse said he still wasnt happy with his companys performance but said he believed Sprints efforts to rebuild the companys image were gaining traction.
“The improvements we have made with the customer experience are the foundation [...]

On Tuesday, Citi Investment Research analyst Mark Mahaney offered an educated guess - that Amazon sold 500,000 Kindles last year. That is higher than his previous expectation of 380,000.
Mahaney bases his latest estimate in part on a regulatory filing from Sprint Nextel Corp., which is a key player since the Kindle downloads books wirelessly over Sprints network. The filing notes that 210,000 of “certain wholesale devices” were activated on Sprints network during the July-September period by “wholesale partners prior to selling the device to the end customer.”
Mahaney said in an interview that this is the first time Sprint has disclosed [...]

Sprint said it expects the latest round of layoffs, which represent a 14 percent reduction of its 56,000 employees, will be largely completed by March 31. The company said it will take a first-quarter charge of more than $300 million for severance and other costs.
About 850 of the layoffs are voluntary, through employees taking buyouts. They will make up about $45 million of the total severance costs, the company said in a securities filing.
In addition to the cuts, Sprint said it will suspend its 401(k) match for the year, extend a freeze on salary increases and suspend a tuition reimbursement [...]

Analysts a saying that marketing produced by Sprint Nextel has been unfocused combined with technical problems with their infrastructure. “We made good progress on our operational priorities in the third quarter and resolved some key issues,” he said. “Still, subscriber losses are too high.”
The nations third-largest wireless provider said it lost $326 million, or 11 cents per share, for the three months ending Sept. 30. It had earned $64 million, or 2 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.
Excluding one-time items, Sprint Nextel said it would have broken even during the quarter. On that basis, analysts surveyed [...]

Sprint’s breakaway company will join with CenturyTel in a merger. The combined company will have about 8 million lines spanning 33 states, mainly in rural areas.
Even though CenturyTel is the acquirer and its management will dominate the combined company, Embarq shareholders will be owning two-thirds of it.
Embarq shareholders will get 1.37 shares of CenturyTel for each share of Embarq. Based on CenturyTels Friday close of $29.50, thats equivalent to $40.42 worth of CenturyTel stock for each Embarq share owned.
CenturyTel shares fell $3.88, or 13 percent, to close Monday at $25.62, making the value of the offered shares $5.05 billion. The [...]