In observing the events leading up to Gary Forsee’s removal as Sprint CEO in October, and the company’s ensuing abandonment of their WiMax-service partnering with Clearwire, one thing becomes obvious.  Well, 3 things.  The first is so obvious I don’t even have to say it: Large mergers rarely work in tech (see HP-Compaq, Alcatel-Lucent, etc.), and equity is destroyed.  Sprint-Nextel is no exception.

The second is that post-merger decisions can’t be done by committee.  It can’t be done by canvassing employees to see what strategy they prefer, or where they want to work (Sprint’s operations are still split between Kansas City and the Washington DC area). 
The merger execution has to be a bit dictatorial.  The corporate office has to issue marching orders, and directors must execute.  (similar holds for corporate re-organizations)
Otherwise the mergers are even more vulnerable to losing market share than they already are.

The third thing is tied to the second: A firm implementation plan for what to do with the network assets, handset product lines, services offering, billing, and customer service has to be completed within the first 3 months.  Sure, there must be plenty of fact-finding and weighing of options during this time, but then the orders have to come.  The following 12-18 months need to be about executing the plan.

Despite the problems with Sprint’s difficult merger, I look forward to seeing them leverage their assets and ultimately offering an irresistible proposition to the marketplace.