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A newly appointed director to Sprint Nextel’s board is looking to shake things up at the wireless carrier. According to a Wall Street Journal article, Ralph Whitworth was appointed to Sprint’s board this week. The appointment came after Whitworth requested two seats for his firm called Relational Investors LLC. The firm owns a 2% stake in Sprint.
Rather than giving up two seats, Sprint Nextel gave Whitworth a single seat. It is believed Sprint Nextel did so to avoid a proxy fight with Whitworth. The article references a source who believes that if Sprint Nextel continues its current plummet Whitworth may push for a spinoff or sale of the Nextel network. Another possibility would be for Sprint Nextel to sell its long distance service.
Whitworth is also not a huge fan of Sprint’s plans to spend US$5 billion on a new WiMax network, which promises wireless broadband speeds. He is more open to it if Sprint Nextel teams up with other companies to help cover the costs of such a network. As a final solution to Sprint Nextel’s financial woes, Whitworth is believed to also be supportive of an all out sale of Sprint Nextel.
Read more from the Wall Street Journal article.
Brian’s Opinion
I have got to believe that Sprint’s acquisition of Nextel has not been the success many investors believed it should have been. That’s got to be especially true if a current director on Sprint’s board believes a viable option is to spin off or sell off the Nextel network. That might not be a bad idea.
Sprint has been slow to offer technologies that take advantage of both Sprint’s network and Nextel’s network. Also, it seems to me that Nextel hasn’t really been “brought into the fold” like it should have been. Other than Nextel becoming a brand offered by Sprint, I haven’t really seen much difference since Sprint bought Nextel.
To Sprint’s credit, the company does offer technology that takes advantage of both of its networks; still, it doesn’t seem to be really pushing those solutions like the company should. Considering the losses realized by Sprint Nextel shareholders, I can understand why Whitworth would have been so insistent about securing a seat on the board. Hopefully, he’ll help the company to plug up its leaking subscriber numbers so that the ship can once again be righted. If the leaks don’t stop, then the ship will surely sink.
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One good thing coming out of HD-DVD losing the format war is that Blu-Ray prices should start to fall. With the battle to the death out of the way, all of the manufacturers involved can start doing what they do best, making better, faster and cheaper equipment. Sigmatek’s new SBR-1000 is a fully functional Blu-Ray player with 720p and 1080p output through a HDMI 1.3 port. Formats that it is going to support include Doby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD.
It is selling for about $365 in Europe, but according to Slashgear, it is expected to go for substantially less in the United States. Electronics are expensive in Europe, so I have to concur. $175-$250 is their estimate; I am thinking it will be on the upper end of that but probably not too much more.
Slashgear, blu-ray
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T-Mobile was quick to do some damage control after AT&T announced it had won the right to provide Wi-Fi service to Starbucks locations nationwide. T-Mobile had previously teamed up with Starbucks to provide Wi-Fi hotsposts within its stores. According to T-Mobile, the transition to the AT&T Wi-Fi service will not take place until later this year.
That means that T-Mobile customers have nothing to worry about in the near future. It also turns out that even when Starbucks switches to AT&T’s Wi-Fi network, T-Mobile customers will still be able to use the Wi-Fi service thanks to a 5-year roaming agreement between AT&T and T-Mobile. That means T-Mobile Wi-Fi subscribers won’t have to go elsewhere for their lattes after all.
Sounds like AT&T and T-Mobile customers will both be able to benefit from Wi-Fi access at Starbucks locations for the next 5 years. It’s safe to say that Starbucks will more than likely see more usage of its Wi-Fi network as a result of the partnership with AT&T. That’s because of the free Wi-Fi access AT&T DSL subscribers enjoy and the free two hours of daily service that will be enjoyed by Starbucks Card holders.
Read more from the T-Mobile press release.
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Some new information has turned up that points to both AT&T and Verizon launching the Palm Centro. It is commonly know that they exclusivity deal with Sprint is ending soon and makes perfect sense that we can expect to see the popular handset showing up with other carriers, except this was previously rumored to be going to AT&T and T-Mobile. Now with the AT&T Centro all but officially confirmed for Tuesday February 19, we can also expect a Verizon branded model as well.
Among the company’s new products, Coster said, will be a version of the Centro with phone service from AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. An exclusive deal with Sprint Nextel Corp. will expire soon, he wrote.
No release date or expected colors are yet know for the Verizon branded Centro.
Read [CNN Money]
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The Continental is a set of travel cables for Mac users. Consisting four AC plugs with 12″ cords, it will let you adapt a Magsafe power brick to just about any power outlet around the world by plugging neatly into the brick itself.
It’s a nice solution, but the Mac bricks have a standard small kettle-lead socket, so any cheapo cable should work, or you could just keep the Apple supplied cable and pick up a small travel adapter. If you simply must have matching gear, though, this set will cost you $40.
Product page [Incipio via CrunchGear]
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As I may have mentioned in previous posts, my iPhone is completely spoiled. It has to have the latest in accessories, from earbuds to car chargers to the stylish new cases. It changes covers more often than Barbie changes clothes.
Its latest acquistion is this cork protective cover from Griffin. Since it’s made by Griffin Technology, it’s functional as well as good-looking, featuring a protective polycarbonate inner shell, with easy access to multi-touch display, ports and controls, and a static peel screen protector . Note on the installation: just put your iphone in the top casing then snap the back into place. To open the case, insert a coin into the notch in the bottom corner and gently twist.
At least it didn’t break the bank at $29.99.
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While it may not have the same sexy aluminum exterior of the macbook air, the ThinkPad X300 is still not a laptop to ignore. We have already seen the specs and expected pricing, now we have found some nice clear shots showing off the nice look of the yet-to-be-released X300, and when you are dreaming of new products nothing is better than those “in-the-wild” style pics. Hit the read link below to check out the X300 in all its glory.
Read [Flickr] Via [Engadget]
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You won’t be winning any fashion shows with these Page Up and Page Down cuff links, but the sorts of people that would actually consider buying them probably don’t care. They are made out of real computer keys and they are cheap, at only $8.95, you can almost certainly afford to purchase his US keyboard cuff links as well. They look the same, just with a U and an S instead of the Page Up and Page Down. The only way that these could be geekier is if they were made from recycled C64 keys, but breaking up a C64 board to make cuff links would be verging on sacrilege.
Price: $8.95 from MarcB on Etsy
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Porsche, known for putting a fancy high-end gloss on regular consumer products (carbon fiber ashtray, anyone?), has blinged up Wegner’s venerable Swiss Army Knife. The 10 function tool is coated in tasty ruthenium, a platinum-like rare metal, and goes for an inevitably high $170. How sweetly ironic it would be if this was used to key a Porsche.
Tool Pr0n: Porsche’s $150 Swiss Army Knife [Toolmonger]
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Even if you don’t like motorcycles you have got to appreciate this Custom Chopper by NASCAR king, Richard Petty. It has been designed with a Cat theme. It features the distinctive yellow coloring of one of the most recognizable heavy equipment brands on the planet and is sure to set the road around you to vibrate with its 2147 cc engine.
This is a big bike for a big price; the auction is starting at $100,000. It is for a good cause, with 100% of the final sale price going to support the Victory Junction Gang Camp. To get a piece of this, you will need to be an approved buyer, which relegates most of us to drooling.
eBay
