Apple/Lala Buyout Deal All But Official

Reports that Apple has reached an agreement to buy online music service Lala is all but official as The New York Times cited its own sources who said the deal is done and signed. Reports began surfacing earlier on Friday that Apple was in talks with Lala, but the two companies have apparently reached an agreement.

In a not-denial, Apple's corporate spokesperson Steve Dowling told The Times that his company, "buys smaller technology companies all the time, and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plans."

The Times' article focused on Lala's technology in hosting music in the cloud -- i.e. on servers, not your local computer -- and serving it to users on demand. As part of the deal, Apple will get Lala's engineers and one of the company's founder, Bill Nguyen.

The report also noted that Lala approached Apple about a buyout, reaching out to Apple VP Eddy Cue after it concluded that its ability to reach profitability in the short term were limited.