Application developer and design house Black Pixel has announced that it now owns the Versions and Kaleidoscope apps that were created by Dutch software developers Sofa, which was acquired by Facebook in June of this year.
Both Versions and Kaleidoscope are beloved Mac applications that show off Sofa’s incredible eye for software design and attention to detail.
At the time of Sofa’s acquisition by Facebook, it was made clear that it was simply the purchase of the team and that Sofa’s software products would find other homes. Sofas former venture partner Acclivity took over Enstore and Checkout and it said at the time that it was looking for a home for Kaleidoscope and Versions.
Black Pixel’s Dave Wiskus had this to say about the acquisition “we’re all users and admirers of Sofa’s work, and the opportunity to be a part of that legacy was too interesting to pass up.”
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Wiskus says that Black Pixel has grown enough to continue to maintain NetNewsWire and to staff teams to work on the new products:
Recently we talked about our growth and our intentions to continue growing. Our design staff has doubled in the last two months, and Black Pixel as a whole is on track to follow suit. We have worked diligently to build our internal products group in anticipation of this announcement: I (Dave) will be leading the product roadmap and design efforts, and we’ve scaled up our existing product team in order to take on these new applications without having to dilute our efforts on NetNewsWire.
“The team will contribute to a wide selection of the products that the design team works on. Typically, each Facebook product has a designer who is a core part of the team,” Facebook said in a statement at the time of purchase.
Black Pixel is no stranger to assuming the mantle of protector to beloved Mac brands as it took over the development of super-popular RSS reader NetNewsWire from developer Brent Simmons earlier this year. It’s nice to know that these two much-praised apps will be in good hands.
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