Nokia starts shipping BlackBerry rival

HELSINKI  - Nokia has started deliveries of its E61 business phone with

full keyboard, a model directly competing with RIM's BlackBerry device, the

world's largest handset maker said on Wednesday.

"First deliveries started late last week. It's gradually becoming

available across the globe," Pekka Isosomppi, spokesman for Nokia's

Enterprise division, told Reuters.

The E70 model, with a 2 megapixel camera, is expected to start shipping later

in May, he said. The first E-series phone, the E60, went on sale in April.

The three E-series phones, aimed at business users, and three of Nokia's

flagship multimedia N-series handsets missed their original target shipping

dates due to software- related problems.

Nokia last October unveiled the new business phone line-up -- part of the

Finnish company's plan to win more of the potentially lucrative corporate market

-- and said at the time that it would start shipments in the January-March

quarter.

Nokia's Enterprise division's first quarter loss widened to 66 million euros

($84 million) and it is aiming to turn to profit in 2007, with the help of its

new phones.