Sprint Nextel looks for tech partners in back yard

The Kansas City Star writes how more than 150 small technology and service business owners in the Kansas City area are trying "to ind out how they could help Sprint Nextel develop the next big thing in wireless communication. This is part of a $100 million effort by the company "aimed at listening and considering ideas from outside companies."

"Diversity drives innovation," Lauer said. "We know that if we just try to do it within the walls of our campus or within Sprint Nextel and our employee base, we will not be successful.

Allen Nogee at In-Stat said, "The carriers thought they could develop all the applications they needed and set up their service as sort of a walled garden. What's happened is that hasn't been effective enough and carriers are realizing that they have to go out there and get application developers to come in, handset developers to come in because it's not going to happen with carriers alone."

Nogee pointed out that "wireless companies in Europe and Asia have long partnered with third parties for application development." He added, "The carriers are leaning more towards making money on the pipeline and letting the applications providers develop the applications to run on the pipeline. I think, long term, (carriers) don't want to be in that business."