I have been a huge supporter of Sprint and Dan Hesse. He has done a solid job restructuring the company. The turnaround has been more challenging. Turnarounds are far more difficult because it is about more than setting the company down a new path, it is about actually making those first several steps towards a company’s new future.

I feel like Sprint has squandered the Palm Pre opportunity. Sprint has done nothing to take advantage of the initial public relations furor caused by the simulataneous introduction of the iPhone 3GS. Sprint has not heavily advertised the Palm Pre. Carriers typically rely on vendors to pay for the bulk of the advertising. However, times are no longer typical. We are in a recession and Sprint is in a turnaround situation. Rule One in a turnaround, “pull out all the stops”. Sprint should not be expecting Palm to spend heavy advertising dollars on the Sprint launch. Bear in mind, Palm will be launching with Verizon in a few months. You cannot expect Palm to foot the entire advertising bill.

For some unknown reason, Sprint has failed to capitalize on all of the June hype about the Palm Pre.

Sprint has until the end of September 2009 to get its act together. Once the fall of 2009 hits, you have the holidays coming and that is when Sprint can make serious inroads and make up for this lost summer.

After December 2009, Verizon will be launching 2010 with the Palm Pre. What advantage will Sprint have then with the Palm Pre? Come January 2010, Sprint’s first mover advantage will be gone. If Sprint does not use this lost summer of 2009 to prepare for a serious fall 2009 Palm Pre campaign, then it will have wasted the biggest opportunity to have come its way since Dan Hesse took over. Worse still, Sprint may have lost any future chances of making a turnaround.

Mr. Hesse, what are you doing?