Sprint unit to focus on wireless services
The telephone company introduces a consulting practice that targets the emerging market for wireless applications.
The phone giant said that its new consulting unit is designed to help clients develop their wireless initiatives and implement enterprise-level applications on any mobile device. Sprint is aiming to assist customers in conducting business when they're away from their desktop by affording a way to access critical business applications and data from a handheld device.
Many technology players have been sinking their teeth into the wireless market--a sector that looks to be a lucrative opportunity for a gamut of companies from communications providers to software makers to consulting services. Though this market is set for huge growth, recent economic woes and jittery markets overall have spurred a slowdown.
Still, software companies including Oracle, SAP and PeopleSoft are racing to supply the enabling software to build applications for "m-commerce," or mobile commerce, in which people can shop or conduct business through wireless devices such as a cell phone.
Meanwhile, a number of consulting houses, from goliaths IBM Global Services and Electronic Data Systems to smaller niche players such as Agency.com and Razorfish, also have been making a wireless push--creating practices centered on providing wireless strategy planning and other services.
With the new consulting division, dubbed Sprint E|Solutions' Enterprise Mobile Practice, Sprint plans to deliver a suite of network services fitted for a client's wireless needs, such as helping customers link their business applications to mobile devices and design customized wireless applications.
In recent months, Sprint and telecommunications companies have had difficulty making a transition from data to wireless. Still, the company, which warned last month that first-quarter results would fall short of expectations in part because of sagging long-distance revenue, said it experienced strong growth in its wireless services.