A Small Apple Talent Acquisition ⇥ allthingsd.com

Liz Gannes and John Paczkowski sort out this mess of stories for AllThingsD:

What’s really happening is that Color’s engineering team — about 20 people, comprising almost the entire company — is being “acqhired” by Apple at what’s being called a “nominal” price of something like $2 million to $5 million, according to multiple sources familiar with both sides of the situation. To repeat, there are no “double-digit” millions involved, according to many people familiar with the deal.

Apple is not buying Color’s technology, intellectual property, domain names or liabilities. Those are being left with the company, which still has considerable cash in the bank — something like $25 million — and is going to be wound down.

Glad to hear something straight from this. The past day has been a mess of rumours.

This acquisition makes sense for Apple. The team that built Color is, from what I hear, very talented and adept. The product simply sucks.