Sprint CEO Dan Hesse recently sat down for an interview with the master of one-on-ones and black backdrops, Charlie Rose, and while much of the talk was spent traveling down memory lane and revisiting Hesse's two-decade rise through the ranks at AT&T before fleeing in 2000, there were some great quotes that came out of it:

• "We're getting ready to launch a couple of new Android devices." We know one's the Hero, and the other -- if we were the betting types -- is the Samsung InstinctQ.
• Rose: "The merger with Nextel was a bad idea?" Hesse: "In 20 / 20 hindsight, it was, yes... the premium that Sprint paid for Nextel was too much." Sprint's gone back and forth on the idea of spinning off Nextel over the past couple years, so it's not a surprising thing for him to think -- but to hear Sprint's CEO actually say out loud that he thinks a very active part of its network shouldn't have become part of the company is a little bombastic.
• "Our prepaid brand is Boost." Nothing wild and crazy about that statement, though it does reaffirm that Virgin Mobile is destined for assimilation. The whole thing's kinda funny considering that Boost dabbled in CDMA before reversing course, and once again, Sprint will be dealing with large installed bases of both iDEN and CDMA prepaid customers.
• On touchscreen smartphones: "Those are the most expensive phones for us to sell, and those are the ones where we need to make sure that the customer stays with us [and] doesn't churn, because we're out a lot of money... those are expensive devices." Theoretically, an aggressively-priced subsidized smartphone could still end up leaving a carrier in the red if you broke your contract early on and paid the ETF, but we doubt that's a huge problem -- especially for a CDMA carrier like Sprint. He goes on to say "I'm already looking at 4G versions of smartphones," so that's really encouraging to hear, particularly if you're into WiMAX.
• "Customer will pay premium for simplicity. Simplicity is everything... Digital One Rate which we launched back at AT&T, that was all about simplicity... people paid more. It wasn't a price cut." Translation: "Unlimited makes you feel like you're getting a deal, but rest assured, we're banking."
• In response to Rose asking how Sprint uses the Palm Pre to take on Apple and RIM: "It was really kind of Palm's decision to take on Apple. And Palm has had [a] long standing relationship with Sprint." It's interesting to hear Hesse seemingly back away from a fight with Apple and chalk up the situation to happenstance -- RIM not as much, considering that Sprint carries a number of BlackBerrys in its lineup and will certainly continue to do so. Talking more about pitting the Pre against the iPhone, he goes on to say that Palm's handset is "doing well. But you've got to almost put the iPhone, to be fair, in a separate category. The Apple brand and that device has done so well. It's like comparing someone to Michael Jordan." If that's not a tactful acknowledgment that the iPhone is a bona fide wireless superstar, we don't know what is. Hesse's giving the iPhone the respect it's rightfully earned -- as any strategically-minded executive would.
• "The biggest impediment to mobile growth is you got processors are getting a lot faster, screens are getting sharper, they use more and more power, and battery technology is not moving very fast... That's the one breakthrough that the industry needs. It needs battery breakthroughs." It's good to hear that Hesse understands as well as everyone else that the wireless industry needs to be focused on making power draw a non-issue, but he sounds less convinced of the solution: "I don't know. Solar we hope, and renewable energy sources." When Sprint gets some cash socked away, it might consider throwing some R&D money at the problem -- it'll be first to market with something resembling a "national" 4G network, after all, and the situation's only going to get worse.

Who knew you'd find out so much about the inner workings of the States' third-largest carrier from watching PBS?

[Via Gizmodo]

Interesting -- just a couple days after Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told a conference that "it's too early to tell" if the Pre's a hit while talking about Android, the latest Best Buy ad shows Palm's baby on sale for just $99 on a two-year contract. That ought to spike some sales, but we'll see if its just a one-week special or a permanent drop before we start trying to read any tea leaves here -- anyone running out to grab one?

Update: Best Buy marketing manager John Bernier has chimed in via his Twitter account to say that the Pre is $199 and that the "error is being corrected." It'll be interesting to see if any lucky customers managed to nab the device for less than a Benjamin.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Read - Hesse's comments
Read - $99 Pre at Best Buy

While speaking at Fortune's Brainstorm: Tech event in Pasadena on Friday, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse apparently got all kinds of verbal when it came to Android and his carrier. The honcho (and TV commercial star) remarked at the industry conference that he was "Glad we waited on Android," adding "The reviews say now it's ready for prime time. It wasn't when it first came out." While we knew Sprint had interest in Android phones (and potentially some forthcoming models), we hadn't heard a peep about timeframes, and the last thing Dan had to say was that he thought Googlephones weren't quite ready for prime-time. That's all changed now with the appearance of Android 1.5, it seems, as Hesse stated that the carrier will ship at least one model with the OS onboard this year. We don't want to be zany conspiracy theorists, but the timing of this seems to dovetail nicely with the very public launch of HTC's heavily modified Hero and Sense UI... a device which has been rumored to be making its way to Sprint sometime this year. The carrier obviously has a storied history of partnering with HTC on phones, so it wouldn't come as a surprise to see it land on Sprint (we certainly haven't seen any other carriers pipe up). Regardless, it looks like Sprint won't be putting all of its eggs in the Palm basket for long. It's going to be a very interesting holiday season.

The exact duration and wording of Sprint's exclusivity agreement with Palm for the Pre has everyone wondering -- perhaps no one more than the carrier's competitors, who are blatantly champing at the bit to steal Sprint's thunder and launch new Palm hardware of their own. Sprint had already officially refuted Verizon's claim that it'd get its own Pre in "about six months" by saying that the deal lasted through 2009, but now, none other than Sprint CEO Dan Hesse is taking a swing at his archrival, saying Verizon needs to "check its facts" over the deal. The dude was clearly choosing his words carefully and refused to comment on exactly how long the company would have a lock on the Pre, but he "can tell [us] it's not six months." That could mean it's three, seven, nine, or 48 -- we really don't know -- but either way, Sprint's real challenge here is that it probably doesn't have webOS exclusivity, which means its competitors should be free to launch other Palm designs whenever they like.

[Image via I Can Has Cheezburger?]

Know the best way to guarantee long lines outside of Sprint stores on June 6th? Have your CEO announce that he expects a shortage of Palm Pre handsets at launch. According to a Reuters transcript of Dan Hesse speaking to investors,

"We don't intend to advertise it heavily early on because we think we are going to have shortages for a while. We won't be able to keep up with demand for the device in the early period of time."

If true, if troubled Palm can't meet demand then this is certainly bad news for investors in a white-hot smartphone market with plenty to entice rejected Palm hopefuls this summer. Then again, Nintendo drove gamers nuts (and some would argue, artificially inflate demand) for almost two years with its chronic Wii shortages. Problem is, Palm isn't as fiscally solvent as Nintendo was in 2006... by a long shot.

[Via everythingpre]

Remember not so long ago when Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said that Android was "not yet good enough" for the Sprint brand, and how weird and awkward that was, all things considered? Well, it turns out that Google's VP of mobile technology, Rich Miner, is set to deliver the keynote at Sprint's mobile developer's conference on December 12th. We assume he'll be there to talk about how much he loves hot dogs, or... an Android and Sprint teamup. So, does this mean that the platform is now approaching Sprint Speed, or what?

Look, Dan Hesse is an intelligent individual, which means he knew good and well that he'd start a flame war when making one particular comment to the National Press Club in Washington. The CEO of Sprint casually proclaimed that he didn't feel Android (in its current form) was "good enough to put the Sprint brand on." In all fairness, Sprint has shown a friendly side to Google in the past, and he did promise to sell an Android-powered phone "at some time in the future," but asserting that Sprint is in the position to shy away from what's arguably the most exciting thing to happen to the mobile realm since the advent of the iPhone is, um, questionable at best.

[Via Android Authority]

Things aren't going so hot down Sprint way right now -- although the carrier recently entered into that landmark $12B WiMAX deal with Clearwire and several other companies, it lost over a million wireless subscribers last quarter and posted a net loss of $211M. That's enough for CEO Dan Hesse to smack the emergency button: he's laying off 4,000 workers, closing Sprint stores, and cutting rates in an efforts to gain back customers and get back into the black. On top of all that, word on the street is that Sprint may also start selling off other assets, including lame-duck Nextel, even though that would involve "significant complexities," according to Hesse. Still, just the fact that he's thinking about it seems like a sign -- too bad no one asked him about those Deutsche Telekom buyout rumors.

New Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse appears to have inherited a company bleeding subscribers by the thousands, and will now officially be dropping the ax on 4,000 employees and 125 retail locations. Amid the loss of 639,000 postpaid customers in the fourth quarter, Sprint will be cutting a total of 6.7% of its work force (following the 5,000 layoffs last year) and 8% of company-owned brick-and-mortar stores, while remaining mute on other rumors that it will consolidate its headquarters in Kansas. Sprint Nextel shares are down $2.89, or nearly 25%, at the time of this writing.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

While we wait impatiently for a WiMAX implementation in our hometown, Sprint employees have something a bit more serious on their minds: more layoffs. Though 5,000 jobs were cut from the company's 60k strong workforce last year, there's a new sheriff in town, and he seems to think that more fat can be culled from the struggling wireless company. Brand new CEO Dan Hesse purportedly is trying to show a tough face to investors, and is rumored to have "several thousand" layoffs in the works. There's also word of a move by Sprint to consolidate company headquarters to better integrate Sprint and Nextel, and it appears the future of WiMAX is still a bit uncertain, since some investors aren't entirely thrilled by the $5 billion outlay required to build the network. It's not easy being number three.

With falling subscriber numbers and some difficult Xohm decisions to be made in the coming months, Sprint wanted a new man at the helm, and has picked Dan Hesse for the job. Dan's replacing Gary Forsee, who held the job since 2003 and was pegged for replacement since August. Hesse hails from Sprint spin-off Embarq, and served as CEO of AT&T Wireless from 1997 to 2000, back in the glory years of that service. Here's hoping that he doesn't axe the WiMAX, but it's clear something has got to change in Sprint land to turn things around.