The war for your pocket space heated up Monday with the release of three new handheld computers.

Research In Motion Ltd. released the BlackBerry 5810, which the vendor calls the first wireless handheld with a built-in GSM/GPRS mobile phone. (GPRS, or General Packet Radio Service, lets GSM, or Global System for Mobile Communications, networks maintain always-on IP connections for E-mail and Web browsing.) The device has all the E-mail and organizer capabilities of a standard BlackBerry, but users can plug in a GSM card, use an integrated ear bud, and make voice calls or surf the Web through a number of cellular networks. The BlackBerry also uses Java 2 Micro Edition as its operating system, which RIM says will let business users easily upgrade applications and manage their information wirelessly. The 5810 should retail for around $500 and will be sold through carriers AT&T Wireless and VoiceStream within 30 days.

The combination of a voice and data device should prove useful to some business users, says Ken Smiley, a Giga Information group analyst. "It certainly gives you the capability to react faster to E-mail messages," he says, letting users who receive an E-mail push one button and call the sender on the phone. Of course, he points out, if a response is needed that urgently, it might make more sense for the sender to call rather than send an E-mail.

Meanwhile, handheld bellwether Palm Inc. has released the Palm m515. It features a 65,000-color display and 16 Mbytes of memory, and retails for $399. Palm says it provides the tools mobile professionals need, including support for popular office software and an expansion slot allowing for add-on memory, keyboard, or modem. The vendor also unveiled the color m130, priced at only $279, with just 8 Mbytes of memory. That makes it the lowest-priced color model in Palm's product line. Both models are on shelves now. But analyst Smiley says he doesn't think the models will be big sellers to businesses, which are looking ahead to an expected midsummer release of models that will run Palm's pending OS 5. "Enterprises aren't going to invest in something like this because they're going to have to turn around and spend more later," he says.

In related news, RIM also revealed Monday a partnership with business-intelligence software maker Cognos Inc. The two companies will jointly develop a BlackBerry version of Cognos' NoticeCast application, which monitors business transactions and sends relevant E-mail or pager alerts to users.

Software vendor Microsoft also joined in the day's wireless news frenzy, saying it's merging its wireless group and networks service provider group to operate under current NSP manager and corporate VP Pieter Knook. The wireless division has lacked a head since senior VP Paul Gross resigned last summer.