BT to offer customers pick of BlackBerrys

BT's mobile arm has signed on to offer its customers Research In Motion's BlackBerry products.

The MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) will sell two joint BT and BlackBerry branded handhelds to its corporate customer base - the BlackBerry 7230 and the BlackBerry 7730 - which come with all the usual corporate-focused applications, including push email, web browser and calendar.

Although BT claims it’s the first MVNO in Europe to add BlackBerrys to its portfolio, the big four UK operators all sell a model of the handheld emailer.

According to analyst house IDC, RIM now has seven per cent of the handheld market, with 121,260 device sold in the third quarter of this year - a 304 per cent rise on its performance in the third quarter of 2003.