SoftBank merger wouldn’t limit Sprint’s startup efforts, exec says

New York, Dec 25 : A new Sprint Nextel Corp. effort to become more active in the Kansas City startup scene should withstand its incoming merger with SoftBank Corp., a Sprint executive said.

A story in the print edition of the Kansas City Business Journal lays out Sprint’s recent interest in local entrepreneurship outreach. Print subscribers can read the full story online.

Some of Sprint’s prior attempts to be engaged with local entrepreneurs petered out after its merger with Nextel, Kevin McGinnis, Sprint’s vice president of product platforms and services, said in an interview this week.

McGinnis, who oversees Sprint’s external software and application developer program, is the executive leading the charge on the local startup effort, which he said has support from CEO Dan Hesse and other company leaders.

As Sprint possibly faces another merger with Japan-based SoftBank — a $20.1 billion deal in exchange for a 70 percent stake in Sprint — McGinnis said the pending transaction isn’t expected to hurt the local initiative’s activity.

“We can’t leave the area from a business leadership, technology leadership respect again,” McGinnis said. “I would tell anybody who’s worried we’re going to retract from that again, that that’s not going to be the case.”

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