Franklin Electronic Ups Mobipocket Stake
by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 3/31/2003
Franklin Electronic Publishers has increased its stake in Mobipocket, the French e-publishing software developer, to more than 25%. Franklin originally had taken a smaller stake in Mobipocket, partnering with the software developer to bring its e-book reader to the U.S. market. The Mobipocket e-book reader runs on most PDA operating systems.
To increase its investment, Franklin purchased half the stake owned by Viventures, a French venture capital fund created by Vivendi Universal. Viventures also sold its remaining shares back to the owners of Mobipocket. The deal provides Mobipocket with help in introducing its e-book reader to the U.S. e-publishing market and allows Franklin to offer the owners of its Bookman and e-BookMan devices more than 8,000 titles in the Mobipocket e-book format.
