When it comes to mobile phones, Sprint PCS has long been in a class of its own.
Since the carrier’s beginnings, Sprint has traveled its own path in the handset market. Instead of relying on stock phones, Sprint has carved out its own phone strategy with customized devices from lesser-known brands. For years, Sprint has employed a team of engineers whose goal is to improve the user interfaces on the carrier’s phones, hoping to make them more useful and intuitive. Further, Sprint has teamed with some of the handset industry’s smaller, more willing players to get its software innovations deployed. Indeed, the carrier has been the exclusive North American supplier of Sanyo Corp. handsets since 1998, and carrier executives describe the vendor as a “factory for Sprint.”
And now the rest of the industry appears to be following suit. Carriers across the world are digging into the guts of the handsets they sell in an effort to improve the phone’s design and separate themselves from their competition. And the search for willing handset partners has in some cases given smaller players a leg up. For example, Vodafone Group plc teamed with Sharp Corp.-a relative unknown in Europe-to launch its revamped Live! wireless data service.
Sprint’s philosophy on handsets is best highlighted in the company’s launch of picture messaging in 2002-the first picture-messaging service in the United States.
“The company rallied behind that,” said Pierre Barbeau, general manager of Sprint’s Picture Mail service. “I think Picture Mail service helped lead the adoption and the growth of wireless use.”
Sprint began work on its picture-messaging service in 2001, just as it was completing its Vision CDMA 1xRTT wireless data service. The launch of Vision, which preceded the launch of the carrier’s picture-messaging service by several months, involved more than a year of research and testing. The Vision launch also included a variety of moving parts, such as the introduction of Java application downloading technology and the upgrade of the carrier’s network and handsets. As Sprint rolled out Vision, the carrier knew that picture messaging would be its next major service introduction.
“When we began this work, there was very little to go on,” said Barbeau, who led the picture-messaging effort inside Sprint. “We would try to imagine how people would use this service.”
Barbeau said Sprint’s user interface engineers tackled the problem, figuring out how to make it easy for users to snap and send pictures with just a few keystrokes. The carrier did have some examples to follow-picture messaging had previously made a major splash in the Japanese wireless market.
The success of picture messaging in Japan led Sprint to team with its longtime handset partner, Sanyo. The phone vendor had been building camera phones for the Japanese market and knew some of the ins and outs of the technology and service. But Sanyo wasn’t Sprint’s only partner-the carrier also teamed with a relative unknown in the wireless industry to build the groundwork for its picture-messaging service. LightSurf Technologies Inc., founded by longtime wireless entrepreneur Philippe Kahn, had been promoting its image transmission technology throughout Asia, but had relatively few major carrier deals. Sprint partnered with the company to develop the software and infrastructure parts of its picture-messaging service.
Sprint’s effort “wasn’t just the handset,” said Lois Fagan, director of business management for Sprint’s handset business. Fagan conducts the negotiations between Sprint and its handset partners. “It was a huge, cross-functional effort that had a lot of moving parts.”
“It’s really been a team effort,” Barbeau said, explaining that Sanyo’s engineers worked on the handset end of the service, while LightSurf built the back end and Sprint researched the user interface.
Although picture messaging was still a relatively new innovation in 2002, Sprint could have outsourced its picture-messaging efforts to one of a number of infrastructure vendors. The allure of such an approach is a relatively quick launch and low cost, as well as business assurances from the supplier. However, that was not the approach Sprint wanted to take.
“You could buy something off the shelf, but then it wouldn’t meet your needs,” Barbeau said. However, Barbeau acknowledged that building a picture-messaging service internally requires far more work, on all sides. “Sprint wants to differentiate itself in the marketplace,” he said.
Who will play?
Although Sprint was taking somewhat of a risk in developing its own technology, so too were its handset suppliers venturing into uncertainty by supporting Picture Mail. Because Sprint and Sanyo internally developed the handset software, each of Sprint’s handset vendors would have to customize their Sprint handsets to support the service. This contrasts with the picture-messaging services from most GSM carriers, which rely on standardized multimedia messaging service software installed in phones. Thus, GSM handset suppliers can sell their phones across a variety of MMS carriers without much modification.
It was up to Sprint’s Fagan, head of the carrier’s handset operation, to convince Sprint’s phone suppliers to play ball.
“Ultimately, the handset manufacturers are looking to ship volumes,” Fagan explained. Thus, if Sprint’s Picture Mail service made a splash, the carrier’s handset suppliers could earn back their investments in software installation.
“I think North American carriers … they have had unique requirements for quite some time,” Fagan said, pointing to the surplus of network technologies like CDMA, GSM and iDEN. “Do the handset makers like it? Not really. (But) they have evolved to deal with it. Because at the end of the game, they want to ship handsets.”
However, Fagan acknowledged that there is some give and take between Sprint and its handset suppliers, with suggestions for improvement made on both sides.
One last item of concern for Sprint was how its own Picture Mail service would sit within the larger U.S. wireless industry. By developing its own picture-messaging application, the carrier was essentially turning its back on efforts by others in the industry to develop a standardized, interoperable offering.
“The service was designed with customers in mind. That’s never a bad strategy,” Barbeau said, adding that Sprint stands ready to open up its network to picture messages from other carriers.
Ready for launch
Once Sprint had straightened out the back-end and front-end parts of its Picture Mail service, it was ready to go prime time. The service debuted in August 2002 with two phones from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. However, the phones featured attachable digital cameras, not the integrated cameras that are today’s standard camera-phone fare. Sprint customers would have to wait until November 2002 for their first integrated camera phone, the Sanyo 5300. The device was the first integrated camera phone in the United States.
“It’s a strong statement for them (Sanyo),” Fagan said. “They get good brand recognition.”
However, the phone’s $300 price tag somewhat hindered the sale of Sprint’s new service, at least among the mass market. In May 2003, the carrier introduced the Sanyo 8100 integrated camera phone. At $100, the phone was one of Sprint’s most popular handsets ever.
The 8100 “was a pivotal point,” Fagan said, making Picture Mail available to most of the nation’s phone buyers.
Sprint’s picture-messaging service has been one of the carrier’s most successful offerings. Last year, Sprint counted a total of 100 million picture messages sent across its network since the launch of the service in 2002. This year, that number jumped to 400 million.
“Those are pretty substantial numbers,” Barbeau said. “We have far exceeded our expectations for this service.”
Sprint’s Picture Mail launch highlights not only the carrier’s desire to be on the cutting edge of technology but also its own internal philosophy on wireless services. The carrier’s reliance on internally developed technology and its tight relationship with handset suppliers serve as somewhat of a guide to others in the industry. Indeed, as network and handset technologies advance, such differentiation may become the norm.
