Facebook Buys Sofa, To Become More Beautiful

Social networking giant Facebook has acquired Amsterdam-based software design firm Sofa as part of its strategy to boost its product design talent.

Founded in 2006, Sofa is best known for their apps available on Mac App Store and other ecommerce products, and provide own designs such as art, icons for its clients.

We were just blown away by the Sofa team's work, from their Mac and web software to the interfaces and brand identities they created for clients. The more we got to know them, the more we realized that their passion for working in small teams and iterating to find solutions to hard problems matched our own culture. We can't wait for them to join the team, Facebook's Director of Design Kate Aronowitz said in a statement.

We're excited to announce today that Facebook has acquired the Sofa team, a statement on Sofa's website reads.

We expected to keep working at Sofa forever. But after Facebook first made contact, we were quickly convinced to join forces, Sofa said.

Facebook is full of talent and has a great culture. We feel challenged and at home at the same time, and can really get things done there. But equally important, we believe that at Facebook, we will be making a real difference to a lot of people's lives, Sofa's post added.

However, Sofa's products -- Kaleidoscope, Checkout, Enstore and Versions - are not part of the deal.

Kaleidoscope and Versions are Mac apps, while Enstore and Checkout will be kept alive by its joint venture partner.

Kaleidoscope and Versions will remain available from both their websites and the Mac App Store and the support email address will be manned by all the usual suspects. The apps are temporarily not available from the App Store for administrative reasons, but we're working with Apple to get them back up as soon as possible, Sofa said.

Sofa said its joint venture partner Acclivity will own, develop, sell and support both Enstore and Checkout, while customers won't notice any immediate changes. Service for each of these will continue as usual, it said.

The Sofa team will be moving from Amsterdam to Palo Alto in the coming weeks.

We'll make sure to infuse some of our particular flavor of Dutch culture at Facebook, the blog post said.