A Partner Tour of Sprint’s Campus
By Thomas Baker
Communications giant Sprint has had a big year.
It’s been active in hurricane relief efforts; it announced a formal end to merger discussions with T-Mobile, ending years of speculation; and chose VeloCloud as its SD-WAN vendor.
Sprint is making a big channel push as well, as evident in its invitation to a core group of partners to tour its corporate headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas, earlier this month. Intelisys, MicroCorp, CarrierSales and CDW were among the big master agents and distributors in attendance.
Channel Partners was there too. Scroll through our gallery below for highlights and a recap.
Partners were anxious to meet company and channel leaders, and to learn more about Sprint's wireline business, connectivity, voice, collaboration, security, SD-WAN and more.
Posing for a photo were members of the Sprint team, including Scott Valentine, sales director – Business Partner Program (second from left), and Mike Fitz, VP and general manager, global wireline business unit (center).
Sprint partners reconnect with the Sprint channel leadership.
Meet Pepper, from SoftBank Robotics. (Japan's SoftBank is the majority owner of Sprint.) The communications giant calls Pepper the first-ever robot built to live among humans. The machine is fun, friendly and engaging — able to communicate through voice, touch, and even emotion.
The Executive Briefing Center (EBC) is where Sprint hosts guests, presents solutions and pursues long-lasting relationships.
The Sprint Rotunda, within the Sprint EBC, resembles a modern-day spaceship. It is used for technical presentations.
Included in the stop in the rotunda was an overview of Sprint's custom SD-WAN solution. The company formally launched SD-WAN services in May.
“The rapid change in technology is driving companies to consider SD-WAN as the answer to simplifying network challenges,” Sprint's Mike Fitz said in a press release announcing the new services. “The Sprint SD-WAN dashboard provides our customers with real-time, detailed visibility into the performance of their entire WAN and all of their applications, while single-click deployment minimizes the set-up time for branch offices and temporary sites.”
Clockwise from left: Intelisys' Stacey Pompei; MicroCorp's Karin Fields; Telecom Management Resources' Marc Metzger; Sprint channel Chief David Falter; CDW's Michael Shonholz; CarrierSales' Richard Murray, Sprint's Mike Fitz; and Top Speed Data's Glenn Illian.
Left to right: Channel Partners' Thomas Baker; Top Speed Data Communications' Steve Farmiloe; Sprint's Scott Valentine; CarrierSales' Tiffany Wolf; Sprint's Mark Harris; and Tech Comm's Hugh Hu.
