Apple buys Lala for a song

So the New York Times' Brad Stone seems to have the inside scoop on the Lala purchase reported earlier by Bloomberg and just after by CNET.  It looks like Apple has bought Lala, not to bring their platform to iTunes, but more as a piecemeal purchase to bring their engineers and experitise with cloud computing into the iTunes music (Movies?  TV?) group. 

Here are some reasons for that:  Lala's business has to get shut down.  Apple won't be able to use any of the current licensing schemes that Lala's customers have signed up for.

Lala’s licenses for streaming music with the major music labels are not transferable to any acquirer, and its service has not been a hit with mainstream consumers.

Also, Lala wasn't in good financial shape.  They needed help to survive.  Warner music recently divested their stake and they sought help from Apple's Eddie Cue.

One person with knowledge of the deal, but who was not authorized to discuss it, said that the negotiations originated when Lala executives concluded that their prospects for turning a profit in the short term were dim and initiated discussions with Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president in charge of iTunes.

This person said Apple would primarily be buying Lala’s engineers, including its energetic co-founder Bill Nguyen, and their experience with cloud-based music services.

According to the Times piece, Apple will be using Lala's engineers to help build out their own music streaming service, perhaps with all of that server space in North Carolina.

Ironically, Lala had submitted an iPhone app just over a month ago to the App Store, which (if it had been accepted) might have been enough to keep Lala going.  Instead, Peter Kavka is saying that investers will only get 50 cents on the dollar on Apple's low ball bid.

It looks like Apple might have picked up Lala ...wait for it...for a song.