Burlington, New Jersey-based Franklin Electronic Publishers Inc has come a long way since it used to be a cloner of the Apple II, and has not looked back since it switched to making handheld electronic books, translators and organizers. Now it wants to give its products a voice. Muscling in on the doomed tete-a-tete between Voice Powered Technology International Inc and Voice It Worldwide Inc (CI No 3,106), it has agreed to buy the former company, which is based in Sherman Oaks, California, paying 25 cents in cash or shares for each Voice Powered Technology share, valuing the electronic speech recognition technology company at about $3.5m. Franklin last year broadened its operations base by acquiring Insilco Corp’s Rolodex Electronics business for $16m.
