Sprint Nextel's SVP of product management and development, Oliver Valente said: "We welcome the competion... we look forward to competing with Apple in the music space." The comments were made at the Pacific Crest Digital Media and Entertainment Forum in New York City, and come a week after reports came out that two of Sprint's top mobile entertainment executives (Paul Reddick and John Styers) are leaving the carrier.

"There are some barriers [Apple] will have to overcome," Valente said. "It won't be as easy as some believe to go from an industry where you are making a lot of money on hardware and not so much money on services into an industry where it is quite the reverse."

For more on Sprint's thoughts on Apple:
- see this article from McClatchy Newspapers