introduced him to a new phone called the SCH-3500—a clamshell model
inspired by the Motorola StarTAC, the dominant handset at the time. But
the SCH-3500 had a unique curvy flip-up earpiece clipping to the display.
“What’s that?” Skarzynski exclaimed. “I have to have that.”
The SCH-3500 gave the flip phone of the day a stroke of flair. But the
engineers explained that the phone was a bust in South Korea. Pete thought
there might be a market in the States. He carried a prototype home and
showed it to his Sprint counterparts.
“This is great. We’re going to do an exclusive with you guys,” a Sprint
executive told Skarzynski, admiring the clever design.
They signed a deal to buy roughly three million SCH-3500s from
Samsung. It was a huge order at the time.
“We developed the phone with a big launch. We had all these big
promotions planned,” coordinating with Sprint, Skarzynski said.
But when Samsung launched the phone in Europe, it flopped there, the
same way it had in South Korea.
It was not a good sign. Samsung engineers informed Pete, “The factory
has decided not to ship this phone. It failed and we don’t want to be stuck
with inventory,” Pete recalled.
Skarzynski panicked. It was two weeks to launch, and he was getting
inundated with calls from Sprint.
So Skarzynski jumped on a plane to South Korea.
“Here is all of our research,” he told the assembly-line managers in
frantic presentations. American consumers, research showed, liked the
unusual design. “You’re in a real danger zone,” he explained, in canceling
this phone with Sprint. “Trust me,” he pleaded.
In the end, with the data to back Skarzynski’s order, headquarters
decided it was better to preserve its new and uncertain relationship with
Sprint. Skarzynski got his phones, and the launch went forward as planned.
“The SCH-3500 became the flagship product in the early days for
Sprint,” Skarzynski said. “It was a great product and sold more than six
million units. Generally products last about a year, but this product lasted
about two years.”
And Samsung’s Texas office began getting more inquiries from the
other carriers.