So now we’ve got Sprint supposedly in a big deal with LightSquared. Who did the due-diligence here? LightSquared has been under the microscope for a while now for having a network that has been screwing with GPS receivers. LightSquared’s spectrum is right there next to the GPS spectrum. Sooooo…Sprint is prepping a deal with a company that may not even be able to build out this LTE network? I’m still baffled as to why Sprint went along with that one. However, Sprint isn’t the only company to do so as NetTalk just joined the fray too and has signed on with LightSquared. Do they all know something we don’t?

I was curious as to what Sprint would do with their WiMAX network should they go to LTE. That’s a lot of build-out to just toss aside and move on. I think it was a smart move by Sprint to officially outline their enterprise targeted initiative for a WiMAX WAN solution. It’s an area that doesn’t have too much competition just yet (will it ever?) and the network is already in place. It’s been tested and now Sprint can offer it to enterprise customers. Good job! A WiMAX WAN for enterprise and LTE efficiencies for the cellular (mostly consumer-side) customers. Now to see if it really works as planned or now. What do you have LightSquared?

Reaction to the news has been nuts already. Sprint’s stock (ticker symbol: S) is getting hammered in the stock market with a 13% drop (as of this writing) amidst very heavy volume. Speculations galore as to what will happen next to Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, the state of wireless in the U.S., and so forth. Even though I SHOULD be working on some other projects right now, I couldn’t sit by idly as everyone prophecizes Sprint’s demise. Here are a few knee-jerk thoughts to this news.

• Will the buyout happen? – First, and most importantly, we have to question if this buyout will be allowed to move forward with regulators. That’s a mighty big merger there and getting fairly close to anti-competitive in the market place.
• When will it happen? – Even if this buyout is allowed, we’re talking probably a year or so of regulators scrutinizing the living hell out of this deal, its effect on the market place, how it affects consumers, and so forth. It may have been announced, but it certainly isn’t going to be completed by Father’s Day.
• Will Verizon Buy Sprint Next? – If the AT&T deal is allowed, I still highly doubt a duopoly would be allowed with Verizon buying Sprint. It would be interesting with both GSM (AT& T and T-Mobile) and CDMA (Verizon and Sprint) merging to having just one player in each technology but I really don’t see regulators going for this.
• Competition for Sprint – This one is a toughie. On one hand, it would leave Sprint as the number three carrier behind AT&T and Verizon. On the other hand, it means one less competitor for Sprint to have to deal with. It’s easier to focus your energy on battling two giants than it is two giants and a small player.
• Sprint’s Recent Business – Sprint has turned itself around since bringing on Dan Hesse. Customer defections are down, subscriptions are up, money is flowing in the right direction, customer service has turned around completely. Sprint will continue this trend.
• Sprint Has More Than Cell Phones - Sprint is more than just a company that sells cell phones to customers. They have put loads of energy into growing their M2M (machine to machine) business that brings in revenue without having to deal with customers coming and going on the whim of a new shiny cell phone. Most M2M is used for LBS (location based services) which in itself is a rapidly growing industry. Sprint was smart to prepare for this M2M growth and capitalize on it.

The web is abuzz with this news. I personally think it’s great for Sprint as it lets them focus on less competition and to continue their path that has already been digging them out of the trenches. The knee-jerk market reaction of killing the stock has not gone un-noticed by me (disclaimer: I snagged a few shares today on the news) and I find it quite comical.

CTIA starts tomorrow and there have already been leaks of some awesome new phones that Sprint will have (HTC Evo 3D and Nexus S 4G to name a couple). Let the marketplace go into a frenzy on this news and let them focus on a deal that may or may not happen and watch Sprint carry on with their turn-around plan and bank on everyone’s perception that Sprint will wither on the vine.

I apologize in advance for the brevity and hastiness but that’s what you get with a knee-jerk reaction. Live it…love it.

It’s easy to think of all the things you want to have in an app or all the services you may want to offer. “Why just cut hair? I want to add coloring, styling, sparkles, music…”

Ok, that was just a SLIGHT exaggeration but you get my point. You may absolutely ROCK at cutting hair and can build a huge clientele by doing so. You think “well if I add just a couple more services, I’ll be able to get even more people and make more money!” Yes…and no.

Initially, you may get some more people in the door. Great! Now think of the consequences of your actions. If you’re not prepared, a couple things could happen.

1. You’re great at cutting hair but suck at coloring. Word gets out that you suck. No good!
2. You spend time on things you’re not so great at, taking away from what you ARE good at. Your quality rating goes down.

This holds true for services, for apps, for pretty much anything you’re setting your mind out to do. “I’m so good at multi-tasking blah blah blah”. Great…I’m proud of you. You can do six things at a 60% satisfaction level rather than excelling at one thing.

Slow down, take a breath. Think about making ONE thing great and do it well.

(this post dedicated to a biz partner with whom some killer mobile apps will be made with)

ps – shameless plug…please donate to my AIDS/Lifecycle ride…you can see the link/logo up and to the left.

The Android OS itself isn’t bad. Not as clean and refined as iOS (the OS on the iPhone) but that’s fine. It also gives me a bit more freedom to do what I like.

I’ve had my Samsung Moment with Sprint for a while now. I’ve taunted all my iPhone wielding friends as I was spending much less on my plan and getting to do so much more. Sure, I liked the design of the iPhone itself and the OS but not enough to spend so much more money and to have to deal with AT&T’s crappy network.

But alas, as each day goes by, I want to fling my Moment at a brick wall. It’s slow at times. Oh how I’d love to be able to upgrade to one of the newer Android OSes but I can’t. (Technically I can if I root the phone and update the OS that way). Rumor has it there will be no OS updated for the Samsung Moment on Sprint. Great…just great. Glad I spent all that money on a phone that is obsolete in a year and can’t be updated.

That…my fellow readers, is where Android is going to lose the battle. As smart phones become more prevalent and the novelty wears off, people will search for the practical phones to spend their money on.

What are our options?

Android

• All major carriers – A big plus for people who are loyal to a carrier (or perhaps have a corporate account with)
• A variety of phones – Another plus – People like variety. Some prefer physical keyboards, others don’t, some prefer particular manufacturers, etc.
• Android OS itself - Massive negative. With all the different phones, there is massive fragmentation on getting each OS tweaked for each phone. Worse yet, many manufactures and carriers stop development of OS work on existing phones as they plan for the next one. This also has repercussions for app developers as they have to make sure their app works on all the different OS forks.

iPhone

• Two carriers – Neutral – It was a big negative when they were exclusive to AT&T but now there’s a choice at least.
• One phone – Plus – Technically it’s two phones, one running on a CDMA network and one on a GSM network and each has its pros and cons of each. But it’s a phone produced by Apple and you know what you’re getting.
• iOS – Plus – One OS to rule them all. Again, technically it’s two OSes (CDMA and GSM) but we’ve got one company making one OS for their phone. You don’t have to worry about your AT&T iPhone going obsolete while I’m able to update my AT&T iPhone.

Windows Mobile

• I think it’s too early in the game to to judge. Many of these will be similar to the Android with multiple phones, multiple carriers, etc.

For well over a year I’ve loved my Android phone. I was annoyed at the lack of apps but I didn’t miss out on anything TOO big. I was able to overcome some syncing headaches with my MacBook Pro…but still manageable. I was amazingly annoyed at the fact I could only run Android 1.6 while there were already phones out there running Android 2.1. Luckily I got the upgrade (another major pain as your phone is wiped clean and you have to start from scratch after the update) but that’s the last update I could get. Here I sit…with a phone that will only get worse and worse as iPhones users get to update their phones with each new iOS update.

I’ve been a fan of you Android, but having this un-updateable brick may be the last straw. You’re great in theory, providing an alternative and competition, but the practicality of HAVING to buy a new phone every year just to get an OS update is ridiculous.

To wit: Not only have I discovered great new music (huge music fan here) but it’s also helped with a few job leads, helped me meet some good people, and my latest greatest achievement has been fixing a giant snafu with Capital One that was pissing me off beyond all belief.

I’ll start with the good story, the useful story. In mid-January, Capital One decided to put a restriction on my account even though I made the payments I was supposed to make. I even had confirmation from no less than two different reps that everything was fine. Not true. I find they put a restriction on my account and they refuse to lift it. No less than two dozen calls over the next two weeks brings the same result…script reading “customer service” representatives hiding behind the “it’s our policy that once a restriction is placed, it cannot be removed” rhetoric. Even though it was THEIR mistake, they refused to fix it. I spoke with manager after manager with still no luck. A variety of emails were also sent, all of them having the same “policy” response. Fed up with this crap I called my bank and placed a stop payment claim with the fraud department because I didn’t get what I paid for with Capital One (use of my card). The calls and emails continued and all came back with the same result.

Finally, I hit the Twittersphere and voiced my displeasure with Capital One. Lo and behold, I get a message from someone named @AskCapitalOne asking if they can help. Sure…why not? We send a few DM (direct messages) back and forth (all the while my super anti-phishing guards are up making sure all is legit), she asks a few questions and I’m convinced she’s legit.

NOTE: never ever never ever give personal info away to someone you don’t know. She asked my name, street number (not even full address) and then asked if she could call me at my number (that I did NOT give…this helped ease my mind a bit). She called and we went through a couple more security questions…some I intentionally answered wrong to make sure someone wasn’t just collecting my info. She clearly had my account info in front of her and we proceeded. I recounted the past few weeks of frustrations and she said “I can see all that here in the notes” and then proceeded to lift the restriction. I checked my account again while on the phone with her and it was true, restriction was lifted.

This experience alone proves a lot:

1. Used correctly, companies can repair massive damage by keeping tabs on what people are saying on Twitter
2. Twitter is truly another tool that can benefit companies and shouldn’t be ignored
3. Twitter isn’t just a toy for bored people
4. Twitter isn’t just a tool for marketing or for information passing

Companies should seriously consider using Twitter to help their business in one aspect or another.

You’ve seen me singing Sprint’s praises on Chia Town for quite a while. Blazing fast network, good customer service (after fixing the crappy customer service they were known for), and GREAT prices. I laughed at my friends who were paying AT&T boatloads of money for crappier service. Alas…such is not the case.

Sprint’s timing is REALLY bad. They announce this just as Verizon is about the get the iPhone. Perhaps Verizon isn’t as bad as AT&T in some people’s minds and a defection from Sprint to Verizon for the iPhone alone won’t be such a big deal. I had planned on sticking with my Android phone (a Samsung Moment which increasingly seems like a big heavy brick as I look at the new phones coming out…but I’m still happy with it) with Sprint because it just makes sense to stick with an affordable plan on a good network.

But now this.

Seriously Sprint, WTF? Did the Clearwire debacle go so badly that you’re trying to recoup losses and are sticking it to your customers? You have to remember Sprint, the only reason MANY people stayed with Sprint was because it was night-and-day cheaper than the competition. AT&T had exclusivity with the iPhone, Verizon had a big fast network, Sprint had…well Sprint had Android phones and a price that couldn’t be beat.

I’m seriously questioning this move. I love Sprint. I love their service, I love their customer service, and I love the tenacity they’ve shown to rebuild after getting beaten down. I applaud Dan Hesse for taking the helm of a sinking ship and getting things back on track. Good job!

But WTF Sprint? This may be the single biggest thing to get people to defect. It’s not like Sprint has the biggest market share as it is to toy around with. Under this price change, the other carriers will now be CHEAPER. Cheaper I say! I was fine settling for a cool phone (but not a “holy crap this phone is awesome” phone) because I had a good network and a stupidly cheap plan to use it on. Now I can pay less AND get a better phone, Android or iPhone?

I don’t know what you’re doing Sprint. Maybe you’re making boatloads of money from NASCAR or from your LBS (Location Based Services) offerings, but this makes no sense to me.

Just recently a friend (this one is dedicated to you Eggman) sent me an article that was basically bemoaning the fact that being an entrepreneur does not give you freedom but instead does just the opposite. Being an entrepreneur, having lived in the Corporate America world (and also the government world, non-profit world, etc) I have seen all sides and know what does and does not work for me. The question remains though…does being an entrepreneur give you freedom?

The simple answer, yes.

Then again, it could be no.

I’m sticking with the former however. It DOES give you the freedom that you hear about. What you DO with the freedom however dictates what your life will be and what free time you have (which some people mistakenly associate to freedom). “Freedom” does not equal “Free Time”.

Life as an entrepreneur may or may not consist of the following:

• Get paid what you’re worth
• Find your own way to get paid
• Deal with your own tax issues
• Work with who you want
• Deal with HR issues if you have employees
• Work from home if you have the space
• Set your own hours
• Worry about every aspect of your business 24/7
• Take two weeks vacation without asking for permission
• Don’t take a vacation for three years because you have work to do

So which is it? You read article after article about “getting your freedom by being your own boss” yet you may know entrepreneurs who never have time to do things with you because they’re working until 11pm every night.

It’s what you make of it. It’s how YOU decide to structure your new company and how you decide live your life.

• Open Hours – You can worry about it 24/7 or you can “shut the office down” at 5pm
• Working Hours – You can take a four hour lunch on Tuesday and make it up Tuesday night or you can work a strict schedule
• Vacation – You can take one whenever you want or you can be a slave to your own company
• HR Issues – If you have employees you can worry about it all yourself and burn your time or you can hire someone to do it

I think you see my point here. You can choose to be a slave to your own company or you can structure your company around your life. The choice is yours. Having your own company isn’t for everyone. It requires discipline and it also requires you to know yourself. Many people have fallen for the “freedom” schtick thinking “freedom” means they can work  two hours a day and screw off the rest of the day. Sure, you have the freedom to try that. The freedom of being your own boss means you’re free to make your own decisions and this freedom can overwhelm people if they don’t know how to handle it.

• Software – Remember when you needed to be a programming genius and to work at a designated software development company to create software? That’s not really the case anymore with computers now being a household item and programming languages getting simpler and more powerful. There are more than a few iPhone apps that have been created at home in someone’s spare time.
• Manufacturing – Back in the day, if you wanted to make a small trinket you had to find someone to design it (and you pay for it), find someone to create some prototypes (and you pay out the nose for that), figure out what’s next, spend more money, you’re done…thus it was mostly for large companies with their own equipment or loads of money to do. Now anyone with a good CAD program (getting cheaper now so you can have this on your home computer) and a 3D printer like the MakerBot can create stuff right at home. Sweet!
• Writing – No longer do you need to toil on your typewriter, have an editor, hope you get a deal with a publisher, and cross your fingers to be an author. Now you can write and self-publish your books in various outlets, in various mediums (print, ebook, etc). If you can think it up, you can write it!
• Audio and Visual Arts – Gone are the days of needing to work at a top design firm or Disney to have access to the best computers, cameras, video cameras, recording equipment, and so forth. Now you can create, edit, add effects, produce, and distribute from the comfort of your own home. We all know how much the recording industry is loving this.
• Business Opportunities- The shrinking of the world has created opportunities for everyone. You can outsource programmers if you need, you can import/export more easily, collaborate with your team on the other side of the country, not to mention finding funding or being found is easier…it basically makes everything mentioned above so much simpler.

The barriers are gone…or at least lowered to a manageable level. What the hell are you waiting for? Get out there and create something. There’s really no excuse to sit around thinking you can’t do something. Many fortunes have been created by some industrious folks sitting around in their garage or dorm room recently. I believe it’s your turn to create some cool stuff. I’m working on it as we speak.

I’ll admit, back in the day, I used to go to Blockbuster. Hell, I believe I still have a membership there. I used it a few years ago when I moved and was catching up on a season or two of “Lost” while taking breaks from a job search. Since then, I may have popped into a store perhaps half a dozen times (which actually seems like a lot now that I think about it) in the past four years.

Why bother going to Blockbuster? With Netflix delivering to your door, streaming Netflix to your TV via video game consoles/HTPCs/AppleTV, streaming video on your computer, downloading from iTunes, etc…Blockbuster just seems less and less relevant.

What brought this all up? I had a $10 gift card for Blockbuster. I have no idea when I got it but I read the fine print on it and they’ll start taking $2 a month off it until the balance is zero if it remains idle for too long (pretty sneaky guys…). Luckily mine still had a balance so I was off to Blockbuster to see what I could use it on. Talk about an exercise in futility. I didn’t want to rent anything…I can rent at a Redbox kiosk for $1. I didn’t want to buy a game ’cause I don’t really play games enough. Sure as hell didn’t want to rent one. Then there were videos I could buy…used ones for $10 or 4 for $20. Even then I didn’t want to buy anything! Why would I want to fill up my house with stuff when I can stream or download and take up much less space?

I ended up buying some Coke, popcorn, and candy. I don’t eat candy much (I try not to…I already ate a box though, damn!) and don’t drink Coke much (figured I’d save it for a road trip or something) but they had a “Get 2 Cokes, 2 candies, 1 popcorn for $5″ deal.

Sorry Blockbuster, you just don’t do it for me anymore. You didn’t adapt to the times and now you shall ride off in history along with CompUSA, Circuit City and other stores that failed to offer what the public wants.