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Sprint Expands Information Technology Services Agreement With IBM

Posted on: Thursday, 8 July 2004, 06:00 CDT

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., and ARMONK, N.Y., July 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Sprint and IBM today announced a five-year Information Technology (IT) agreement valued at more than $400 million that is expected to accelerate Sprint's delivery of products to customers and vault the company's IT business practices to best in class.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20001013/SPRINTLOGO )

Under terms of the agreement, which expands the scope of existing IT work between the companies announced in September 2003, IBM Global Services will provide application development and maintenance support for selected Sprint IT software systems and will work with Sprint to:

-- Establish accelerated software application delivery services to allow

Sprint to more quickly deliver new and differentiated products to its

customers while decreasing costs.

-- Achieve Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI(R)) Level 3

certification, which is an industry-recognized standard set by

Carnegie Mellon University for software application development and

management. CMMI Level 3 certification demonstrates that Sprint

incorporates the best IT business practices, ensuring predictability,

lower costs and improved quality in performance.

"This is the latest in a series of projects we've undertaken with IBM Global Services to draw on their consultants' expertise in business processes and project management," said Michael W. Stout, chief information officer, Sprint. "By leveraging the expertise and technology of business partners like IBM, Sprint is able to focus on areas of growth and innovation and strengthen our competitive position in service cost and quality."

Sprint expects this agreement to further improve IT application development and maintenance processes, reduce cost and increase flexibility. These improvements will support Sprint's transformation to a customer-centric organization and deliver cost savings contributing to its previously announced transformation goal of reducing annual operating expenses by more than $1 billion over the next two years.

"IBM is delivering industry-leading business process transformation services to Sprint," said Dean Douglas, vice president of telecommunications, IBM Global Services. "Just as IBM has taken steps to dramatically reduce the number of applications used to operate its businesses, we're sharing those lessons learned to help cut Sprint's core business applications and improve its efficiency and speed to market."

As part of the agreement, approximately 1,000 Sprint IT employees will transfer to IBM to support Sprint applications.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

This news release includes certain estimates, projections and other forward-looking statements. Future performance cannot be ensured. Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. The words "estimate,""project,""intend,""expect,""believe" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release. Sprint is not obligated to publicly release any revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events after the date of this news release or unforeseen events. Sprint provides a detailed discussion of risk factors in their periodic SEC filings.

About Sprint

Sprint is a global integrated communications provider serving more than 26 million customers in over 100 countries. With approximately 65,000 employees worldwide and over $26 billion in annual revenues in 2003, Sprint is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying state-of-the-art network technologies, including the United States' first nationwide all-digital, fiber-optic network and an award-winning Tier 1 Internet backbone. Sprint provides local communications services in 39 states and the District of Columbia and operates the largest 100-percent digital, nationwide PCS wireless network in the United States. For more information, visit http://www.sprint.com/ .

About IBM Global Services

IBM Global Services is the world's largest information technology services and consulting provider, generating record revenue and signings in 2003 of $42.6 billion and $55.5 billion, respectively. Some 180,000 professionals in more than 160 countries help clients integrate information technology with business value -- from the business transformation and industry expertise of IBM Business Consulting Services to hosting, infrastructure, technology design and training services. Leveraging IBM's unequalled scope and scale, IBM Global Services delivers integrated, flexible and resilient processes -- across companies and through business partners -- that enable clients to benefit from the on demand business model by saving money and transforming their businesses to be more competitive. For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/services .

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20001013/SPRINTLOGOAP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/PRN Photo Desk, +1-888-776-6555 or +1-212-782-2840

Sprint

CONTACT: Media, Scott Stoffel of Sprint, +1-913-794-3603,scott.e.stoffel@mail.sprint.com , or Kathleen Ryan of IBM, +1-914-766-4637,karyan@us.ibm.com

Web site: http://www.sprint.com/http://www.ibm.com/services

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