Purple Software, the mobile games specialist, is to outline its future in a statement expected today. Concerns over the company surfaced last week.

The UK firm's home page, www.purplesoft.com, has been down for several days. But last week one could enter the site through other pages, an option now closed.

So we can tell you that in February 2002, Purple Software secured £1.5m in its "final round of funding", from two existing VCs: Questor and New Media Spark. Considering that only Questor is active right now, this may pinpoint difficulty for Purple Software in raising new funds.

Purple Software develops board games for mobile phones. Its portfolio includes: backgammon, card games, checkers, chess, Go, snooker (!), pool (!!) and darts (!!!). It numbers DoCoMo, the world's second biggest mobile phone company, as a customer.

But where are the revenues? One day, mobile games will be big. But not yet. ®