Sprint Makes Collaboration and Mobility Easier for Businesses with Microsoft Office 365 and Productivity Suites

  Sprint Makes Collaboration and Mobility Easier for Businesses with Microsoft
  Office 365 and Productivity Suites

Unleashing the power of a mobile workforce to make it easier for employees to
work virtually anywhere with cloud versions of familiar Microsoft applications
 plus critical security and support features … all for a low per user monthly
             rate and consistent experience on nearly any device

Business Wire

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- August 20, 2012

Providing collaboration and mobility tools across a diverse workforce
efficiently and affordably has never been easier. Today cloud-enabled
Microsoft Office 365 offered by Sprint (NYSE: S) is available for small to
mid-sized businesses (SMBs). Sprint also has launched Productivity Suites that
bundle enterprise-class communication, collaboration, security, and storage
tools with ongoing IT support, offering businesses a comprehensive solution so
their employees can collaborate and be more productive while in the office and
on the go.

Sprint simplifies the purchase, early life, and ongoing support processes with
its unique premium Carefree Cloud, “white glove” migration and onboarding
assistance, along with online support resources and a user friendly portal to
manage the services. Carefree Cloud is available with all Office 365 plans
offered by Sprint at no additional charge (when used within the first 90 days
of purchase) so companies have the flexibility to receive the level of
migration and ongoing support they need. Tech-savvy customers can use the
“Migration 1 2 3” self-serve tool to transition to the new solutions on their
own, should they choose. For customers who may not have access to IT help,
Sprint can provide them with “white glove” step-by-step assistance to walk
them through the migration of all applications and users to Office 365
including end-to-end setup on all devices.

With plans starting at just $6 per user per month, businesses will enjoy
predictable monthly costs with no up-front infrastructure expense,
pay-as-you-go plans and savings by bundling all of the necessary tools … as
well as a single bill and single point-of-contact for all Sprint-bundled
services (pricing excludes taxes and surcharges).

Sprint offers a variety of plans to meet the needs of businesses, including
those with the core capabilities of Office 365 such as:

  * Office 365 Professional, which includes access to Exchange, SharePoint,
    Lync Online, and Office Web applications.
  * Office 365 Enterprise includes the items above plus the additional
    features of Active Directory synchronization, archiving capabilities and
    IT policy management.
  * Office 365 Enterprise Plus adds a subscription to Office Professional Plus
    2010 desktop for up to five devices, and unlimited storage for email and
    archiving.

In addition, Productivity Suites from Sprint build on the features of Office
365 by adding extended technical support through IT Helpdesk from Sprint to
keep a business up and running without the expense of a dedicated IT staff or
outsourced consultant. The specifics of these plans include:

  * The Productivity Suite adds IT Helpdesk to the Office 365 Professional
    plan. IT Helpdesk includes unlimited 24/7 remote and onsite technical
    support for operating system issues, software support and installation,
    and hardware diagnostics and troubleshooting, including most peripherals
    and mobile devices. It also includes a financially-backed service
    guarantee, computer protection software and unlimited secure online data
    backup.
  * For businesses that need even more, Productivity Suite Plus provides all
    of the features of the Office 365 Enterprise Plus plan bundled with IT
    Helpdesk (as detailed above).

“With Sprint’s focus on expanding our Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) portfolio,
our productivity suites were designed to help companies boost productivity and
cost savings, allowing employees to make the most of cloud-based collaboration
and communication tools with seamless mobile integration for anytime,
virtually anywhere access from nearly any device,” said John Dupree, senior
vice president of business sales, Sprint. “It is all backed by our dependable
and continually improving networks and the scalability to give businesses the
flexibility needed to grow. Not to mention Sprint is the only national
wireless carrier to offer truly unlimited data with no throttling for
smartphones while on the Sprint network.”

Bringing Office 365 to market quickly required close collaboration with
Parallels and the deployment of its service delivery system, Parallels
Automation. This comprehensive solution enables many of the features and use
cases that differentiate Sprint’s productivity suites in the marketplace.

“The complexity involved in migrating from one solution to another is a key
barrier to wider adoption of cloud services. Sprint’s Carefree Cloud service
and IT Helpdesk offerings make it easier for businesses to switch over to
cloud-based Office 365,” said Melanie Posey, research vice president, IDC.
“On-going technical support for Office 365, combined with IT Helpdesk options
that meet specific needs, provide SMBs with flexible, cost-effective SaaS and
IT support options that may have otherwise been out of reach.”

For more information and to view a video about Sprint’s offer with Microsoft
Office 365 and productivity suites, visit www.sprint.com/office365.

This collaboration builds upon the expanding portfolio of cloud-based
solutions that Sprint has been focused on launching this year. This portfolio
includes Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) planned for launch in late 2012
and Sprint Complete Collaboration, a Unified-Communications-as-a-Service
(UCaaS) solution launched earlier this year. Sprint also is delivering an
innovative private-label cloud services platform to wholesale customers today,
enabling them to quickly deliver simple and affordable brand-name software
services to SMBs.

Sprint Network Leadership

To ensure that demand for connectivity for converged and cloud-based solutions
will be met, Sprint has embarked on a multiyear network initiative, Network
Vision, designed to enhance customers’ network experience with faster data
speeds, improved voice quality and easier connectivity. Sprint expects to
complete the majority of Network Vision by the end of 2013.

About Sprint Nextel

Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline
communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers,
businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel served more than 56 million
customers at the end of the second quarter of 2012 and is widely recognized
for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including
the first wireless 4G service from a national carrier in the United States;
offering industry-leading mobile data services, leading prepaid brands
including Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, and Assurance Wireless; instant
national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1
Internet backbone. The American Customer Satisfaction Index rated Sprint No. 1
among all national carriers in customer satisfaction and most improved, across
all 47 industries, during the last four years. Newsweek ranked Sprint No. 3 in
its 2011 Green Rankings, listing it as one of the nation’s greenest companies,
the highest of any telecommunications company. You can learn more and visit
Sprint at www.sprint.com or www.facebook.com/sprint and
www.twitter.com/sprint.

Contact:

Sprint
Stephanie Greenwood, 913-315-1612
stephanie.greenwood@sprint.com