The Walt Disney Company today announced the acquisition of Palo Alto-based Tapulous, Inc., a leading developer of music games for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Through a merger agreement, Tapulous is now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company reporting into Disney Interactive Media Group (DIMG).

As a part of DIMG’s mobile games group, Tapulous strengthens the company’s portfolio of games and entertainment offerings in the fast-growing mobile arena. Through this deal, Tapulous founders, Bart Decrem and Andrew Lacy, as well as their development team in Palo Alto, CA will be joining DIMG’s mobile content group. Decrem and Lacy, previously CEO and COO of Tapulous, will now take on the leadership roles for the DIMG mobile group with Decrem reporting to DIMG President Steve Wadsworth.

In the last year, DIMG has enjoyed many successes in its mobile business counting several “platinum” performing apps with more than 1 million downloads including Disney’s Alice in Wonderland Lite, Fairies Fly Lite and JellyCar 2, which is Disney’s most successful premium game in the app store to date. In addition, DIMG creates and delivers unique mobile content and manages a Disney-branded mobile phone service in Japan in association with Softbank.