Sprint is one company that has definitely endured the ups and downs of the telecommunications industry. In battling against AT&T (News - Alert) and Verizon for dominance in the U.S. market, Sprint has taken some punches and is now coming back strong with a new technology division that is sure to push the company’s growth.

 

The Emerging Solutions Group is set to drive the company toward strong growth in the market. To get a better understanding of what this group does and how it will play into positive projections for Sprint (News - Alert), TMCnet’s Erin Harrison sat down with Wayne Ward, vice president of emerging solutions for Sprint at this year’s ITEXPO (News - Alert).

Ward highlighted that one of the key focuses for ESG is to concentrate on a holistic machine-to-machine approach. Any devices that connect to the network but are not phone based will fall into this category. The group will focus on both B2B and B2C markets.

When asked what Sprint hopes to accomplish with this group, Ward noted the key is in growth. Spring has been in this particular part of the business for roughly 10 years and supporting the market space in separate entities within Sprint. The company decided to combine all of these areas of expertise into one group to accelerate growth in this space.

“This space is white hot right now,” said Ward, “from an applications perspective and in changing business models and it really is all about growth.”

In order for the ESG to succeed in its efforts, the company must be able to communicate to the customer base the benefits that it can deliver. Ward highlighted that for suppliers, ESG is put in place to simplify a complex market space to support the end user development community. They are essentially satisfying a need to cut through complexity.

On the consumer side, the focus will be in offering devices that simplify everyday life and delivering all connectivity on one bill. For businesses, ESG will be changing the business model and helping customers to satisfy regulatory changes, needs and efficiency, as well as bringing new models to market.

When asked what makes ESG unique when compared with M2M solutions, Ward said, “We are technology agnostic and that differentiates us from the competition. There are four different technologies that we operate and we are the only carrier with 4G in the marketplace. We can customize the technology based on customer needs and our LBS GPS services are unique.”

 

As for what he hoped to achieve at ITEXPO? Aside from getting some sun, Ward also hoped to learn more about the space and develop an ecosystem among other providers.