• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Sprint And Ibm To Make Software More Mobile ; From Office Computer To Wireless Phones

Posted on: Wednesday, 18 February 2004, 06:00 CST

Technology that Sprint will develop through an alliance with IBM will give corporate customers the ability to move software applications from an office computer to a wireless telephone.

The Overland Park-based company is spending $100 million to develop the "Business Mobility Framework" using existing IBM technology.

The framework will give the company a system for easily adapting all kinds of business applications to the wireless world.

Think of a business that repairs furnaces and air conditioners, said John Heiman, director of alliance management with Sprint.

Dispatchers could know precisely where technicians are working, how certain jobs are progressing and what inventory each technician has on hand through a constant stream of data flowing over Sprint's wireless network back to the home office.

Sprint officials said the system the company is developing, to be sold to business customers by Sprint, IBM and possibly other companies, will allow corporate customers to easily customize all kinds of software applications for a mobile environment.

"This, in a nutshell, makes our customers far more productive," Heiman said.

Sprint officials said the bigger picture behind the IBM deal is a broad strategy of forming alliances to get a foot in the door with big corporate customers.

The company wants to form relationships with "system integrators," such as IBM, which often are the gatekeepers to those customers.

For Sprint, a deal such as the one with IBM may be the only available path to some corporate business.

"We know there are select customers who make buying decisions very differently from everyone else in the market," said Elizabeth Byland, vice president of strategic alliances for Sprint.

These companies go to a system integrator such as IBM, Accenture or a handful of others and seek advice on technology purchases.

"Much of the business out there now is so ingrained in integration and outsourcing projects that it will only get sold through working through a large integrator," said John Dupree, Sprint's vice president for system integrator sales.

Sprint officials said the company is working on similar alliances with other system integrators, but they declined to name them.

Last week, Sprint announced its alliance with IBM, along with a plan to outsource much of its customer service operations to the company. Officials said the two deals are not related.

The outsourcing contract is expected to save Sprint $550 million over three years and, company officials hope, result in improved customer service.

More News in this Category