Microsoft has acquired code-sharing platform Github, the software company announced Monday. The acquisition is valued at $7.5 billion in stock. According to Microsoft, Nat Friedman will take the helm as Github CEO once the acquisition closes “later this year.” Freidman will report to Microsoft Cloud + AI Group Executive Vice President Scott Guthrie, and GitHub CEO and Co-Founder Chris Wanstrath will be a technical fellow at Microsoft.
“Microsoft has been a developer-focused company from the very first product we created to the platforms and tools we offer today,” Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft, stated in a blog post addressing the acquisition on Monday. “Building technology so that others can build technology is core to our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”
According to Github, the platform is currently home to 28 million developers, with 85 million repositories hosted as of June 2018. According to Microsoft, Github will “continue to operate independently,” and will continue to have freedom over the programming languages and platforms they choose to build for their projects.
The acquisition represents Microsoft’s dedication to “bring Microsoft’s developer tools and services to new audiences.” Specific applications for the partnership weren’t clearly stated on Monday. But expanded developer resources could be a boon for Microsoft, especially as the company continues to build out their cloud application services. TechCrunch has suggested possibilities for collaboration and learning resources on LinkedIn, which Microsoft acquired in late 2016.
GitLab, a developer community that was originally built on Github, pointed to opportunities the partnership could bring for the Microsoft Azure cloud services platform.
“GitHub has earned mindshare within the developer community, and Microsoft’s acquisition is certainly an attempt to garner and cultivate that mindshare,” GitLab wrote on their blog following the announcement. However, the long term strategic implication seems to be that Microsoft wants to use GitHub as a means to drive Azure adoption.”
Github, founded in 2008, offers a mix of free and paid hosting services, code collaboration, and team review functionality. The company has raised around $350 million, and was valued at $2 billion in 2015.
The Microsoft acquisition is expected to be finalized by the end of the year.
