Microsoft GitHub acquisition: It's official
Over the weekend, we heard rumors which claimed that Microsoft was looking to add GitHub, a big name in the coding and open-source spaces, to its portfolio. It didn't take very long for the truth of the matter to come out, as less than 24 hours later, Microsoft has confirmed that it is indeed buying the company. It's paying a significant sum to make GitHub a Microsoft brand, too.
In fact, Microsoft will pay a whopping $7.5 billion in stock to acquire GitHub. As with all acquisitions, this one between Microsoft and GitHub is subject to regulatory approval and "customary closing conditions," but assuming that all goes smoothly, Microsoft expects the deal to close by the end of the calendar year.
If you're a developer who relies on GitHub and you're left a little on edge by this news, it's hard to blame you. While Microsoft appears to be embracing the open-source community these days, it wasn't very long ago that it viewed open-source development as a threat to its core business model. The good news, however, is that it seems fine with simply letting GitHub do its thing, even after the acquisition is complete.
"GitHub will retain its developer-first ethos and will operate independently to provide an open platform for all developers in all industries," today's announcement reads. "Developers will continue to be able to use the programming languages, tools and operating systems of their choice for their projects — and will still be able to deploy their code to any operating system, any cloud and any device."
Specifically, Microsoft says that it wants to grow enterprise use of GitHub and use it as a platform to deliver its tools to more developers. Assuming this light-touch approach to GitHub remains intact moving forward, this could be a big win for developers who use the site thanks to Microsoft's seemingly unending resources. We'll see how it all shakes out in due time, but for now, head down to the comments section and let us know what you think now that the deal is official.