Strategic Perspectives

In the past couple of weeks, Sprint has introduced two ground breaking products - the MiFi personal hotspot and the Palm Pre.  There's no question that each of these products is exciting and each advances the Mobility Revolution.  My question is, which do you think is the most revolutionary?

As a Sprint executive who speaks at conferences, I occasionally get to borrow some of our new technology to take with me to show off.  Recently, I was able to borrow the Sprint MiFi 2200 for a long weekend.   What an awesome device.  If you haven't seen it, here's how I would describe it: 

• Take a deck of playing cards and cut the deck.  The half of the deck in your hand is rougly the size of the MiFi (but the MiFi is lighter).
• Crammed into this tiny package is the functional equivalent of your broadband router connecting you to your cable or DSL provider, and your WiFi access point.  The MiFi provides broadband connectivity via Sprint's EV-DO network, and provides a WiFi signal for up to five devices (computers, media players, game machines, etc.)
• Push the power button once, and within seconds you're connected.  That's simplicity!

Click here for a more thorough description.

As I drove around town, my son was able to surf the web at broadband speeds.  When we went into a restaurant for breakfast, we brought our own broadband connectivity with us.  In my office, I was able to connect my iPod Touch (which I won't connect to secure corporate networks) to download some updates.  At home, when my main broadband connection slowed down, I quickly switched to the MiFi and was back to full speed.

In short, because I was so blown away by this device, I asked for a MiFi of my own as my father's day present.

I also had the chance to borrow a test Pre for about a week and similarly had a life changing experience.

The most obvious difference with the Pre is the full HTML support.  E-mails on my phone now look like E-mails on my desk.  Web pages on my phone now look like Web pages on my desk.  The real upshot for me was that I was now getting things done while away from my desk that I previously had to save until I returned to the office.  That's increased productivity!

The synergy feature synchronizing e-mail, calendars, and contacts from my work Exchange server, my gmail personal account, and my online social networks, was also impressive.  At one glance, I could see how my personal calendar overlapped with my work calendar.  My one list of contacts combined info from all the sources without any effort.  I still chose to view my inboxes separately so I could focus on work stuff during work time, but switching between them was simple.

If demand weren't so high, I similarly would be standing in line for my own Pre today instead of writing this post.

To me, the Mobility Revolution is about Mobility being integrated into all of life - into every product, every service, and every process - to as dramatically change how we interact with the world and do our jobs as the Internet has impacted our lives.  

In those terms, each of these products is revolutionary.  But which do you think is more revolutionary?