Rollout: Nokia's E62 Smartphone

The Upshot With its QWERTY keyboard and rugged but svelte design, Nokia has designed the E62 to be its flagship for the enterprise, as well as its BlackBerry killer. The E62 enters a crowded U.S. market, one dominated by RIM's BlackBerry, Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Palm OS. This time, Symbian's OS 9.1 comes to North America in a compelling device. The ability to work with a multitude of messaging platforms is the E62's most compelling feature. The Microsoft Office-compatible applications are a welcome surprise, considering that the E62 has a lower price than the Palm OS or Windows Mobile devices on the market. The addition of wireless LAN support to the E62's feature set could have given it an edge over other devices with similar size and form factor.. Nokia E62 Smartphone http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/E62

With the release of its E62 Smartphone, Nokia is hoping its thin, rugged and messaging-platform-agnostic handheld will help the company grab a bigger piece of the U.S. smartphone pie. An internationally recognized name in the consumer phone market, Nokia has yet to gain a foothold in corporate America. The Symbian operating system, which powers Nokia's smartphones, also is common for most of the rest of the world, with almost a 70 percent market share globally, but less than 10 percent here.

Although the E62, available through Cingular, isn't quite a BlackBerry killer, it packs a lot of flexibility into a small size. Its compatibility with multiple messaging platforms would make the E62 a lower-cost alternative for enterprises with various e-mail systems that are looking to standardize on one device.