Origin of Verdana (was RE: Public Domain Fonts for the Web)

Thus spake Bill Hill:
 
> We commissioned Matthew Carter to produce two families of type
> from scratch, designed for reading large amounts of text on the screen. We
> had them hinted by Tom Rickner at Monotype. [snip] Verdana and Georgia
>are superb fonts.

Can you correct any misinformation in what follows?

I have heard that Verdana was commissioned not by MS, but by the erstwhile
Taligent. Matthew Carter
designed _Ventana_ as the primary OS UI face for Taligent. When that
venture went south, the face was homeless, and (I believe) not quite
complete. Then Microsoft bought it (liquidation sale?) and called it
Verdana - something about the verdant chroma of the greater Seattle area.
Is this right?

__________________
Todd Fahrner
mailto:fahrner@pobox.com