Optus picks BlackBerry

Australia's number two telecommunications company said it would sell the BlackBerry 7230, the BlackBerry 7730 and the Nokia 6820 to corporate customers with a range of payment plans.

Blackberry is a wireless service that provides access to e-mail, data, Internet, phone and personal information management applications on a wireless handheld. There are presently more than 1.3 million active subscribers worldwide, Optus officials said.

Allen Lew, Optus' managing director, mobile, said the BlackBerry offering complemented an existing range of offerings that included Optus MobileMail and more specialised solutions delivered with partner Airloom, such as Intellisync's Email Accelerator.