Nokia Ships BlackBerry Competitor

Nokia on Wednesday said it began shipping the Nokia E61, a phone intended to compete with RIM's BlackBerry. The first deliveries began last week, the company said. The E-Series line of phones -- which also includes the E70 and E60 -- was introduced in October of last year in an effort to grab more of the lucrative enterprise market. However, software problems have delayed the release of the E-Series phones, as well as several of Nokia's N-Series Multimedia phone as well.

The E61 looks much like RIM's BlackBerry with a large screen and full QWERTY keyboard. The E70, which comes with a 2-megapixel digital camera, will start shipping later this month. The first E-Series phone, the E60, started shipping last month. Nokia has hopes that the new phones will help turn a profit in its otherwise loss-plagued enterprise division.