Ruh roh, Raggy, there's trouble a-brewin' with the whole
Sprint-Nextel merger. Dig this — there's two flavors of
Nextel: Nextel Communications (merging with Sprint) and Nextel Partners (not merging with Sprint, provider of wireless
services under the Nextel brand), which is partly owned by Nextel Communications. "Sprint-Nextel" may indeed make a
great post-feminist hyphenated marriage, but not so much a lovable brand name — so,
as we know, they've been thinking of scrapping the Nextel
name except for use with some specific subset of services, opting to use Sprint as the main brand. Nextel Partners has
filed suit with the New York Supreme Court, seeking to prevent the Nextel brand name from being completely absorbed by
the Borg Sprint in the merger. They say the loss of branding violates agreements between them and
Nextel Communications, and that their usage of the Nextel brand in markets where Nextel Communications does not operate
is cause for asking the court to order the latter not to make any changes to its brand identity unless Nextel Partners
can jump with them at the same time. Awww, isn't that sweet? It's a "wait for us!" suit.