Microsoft, one of the biggest tech giants in the world has reportedly acquired GitHub for $7.5 billion worth of its stock today.
According to reports by Bloomberg, GitHub decided to go with Microsoft partly because of CEO Satya Nadella.
GitHub is a vast code repository that has become popular with developers and companies hosting their projects, documentation, and code. Big tech companies like Apple, Amazon, Google, and many others use GitHub too.
Microsoft has been embracing open source lately and ever since the new CEO Satya Nadella took over, the company has gone ahead to make bold moves in the industry. It has open sourced its PowerShell, Visual Studio code and Microsoft Edge JavaScript engine.
It also one of the highest contributors to the GitHub site with more than 1,000 employees actively pushing code to repositories with its own original Windows File Manager source code added to the site.
Microsoft also partnered with Canonical to bring Ubuntu to Windows 10, and acquired Xamarin to assist with mobile app development. All these are critical signs that the company is moving towards to the open source community.
GitHub, which was last valued at $2 billion back in 2015, could be higher right now and we aren’t certain about the amount pitched in to acquire the repository gaint
The company has made huge strides in getting close to the open source market as it is using the open source Git version control system for Windows development not forgetting that it brought SQL Server to Linux too.
This acquisition presents a lot of opportunities for App development, Visual Studio and much more but at the same time worries some open source advocates who don’t trust Microsoft’s involvement.
Author: Allan Bangirana
Allan Bangirana has a taste for all kinds of topics and usually writes about tech, entertainment, sports and community projects that make a difference in society.
He writes for Newslibre and Spur Magazine. He is also the co-founder of the Innovware project and a freelance consultant passionate about technology and web.
