Despite Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse claiming Android is not good enough for the Sprint name, they are ready to welcome an Android-powered handset sometime in the next year.  Looks like someone is eating his words and coming back with his tail between his legs, contradicting himself less than two months after making the statement that Android is ”not good enough to put the Sprint brand on it.”

Last time I head Sprint was seeing substantial losses while Google is seeing tremendous growth. Sprint executives are closely monitoring the progress of the T-Mobile G1 and waiting for the right time to “pull the trigger.” After sustaining a loss of almost 3 million customers in a single year, Sprint must look beyond what they are currently doing (putting down Android) and open up to new ideas. Taking on a new platform such as Android could really help them out in this time of need.

“We’ve just got to make sure our customers are saying, ‘If you had a phone like this, man, I would really be more interested in Sprint because of it,’ ” Packingham said. “You want to go out with a bang, because you believe that your investment is one that’s going to generate a lot of return with customers — new customers. That’s what our shareholders are looking for.”

Many happy Sprint customers would hate making the jump to another carrier for an Android-powered handset, but if Sprint does not produce one, some of the 50.5 million customers may have no choice. Chief Service Officer Bob Johnson said that Sprint may close as many as 20 call centers next year to help the company recuperate.

[Via Seattlypi]