Even if you’re not a programming geek, or in touch with the news updates, here is the big picture for you regarding the latest buzz of Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub.
Microsoft is a well-known global technology company, something even a toddler would be utilizing without knowing. Well, for those who are uninformed of GitHub, it is a “popular code repository hosting service used by developers to work in the cloud.” It is basically considered as a social network for developers.
Many big companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google & IBM, etc. are using GitHub for keeping their corporate code & confidentially collaborating on the software.
“According to GitHub data, with more than 27 million users and 80 million repositories of code GitHub is the largest host of source code in the world & Microsoft is been one of the top contributors to this web-hosting service with around above 1000 employees adding code to repositories.”
Both the parties have been conversing about the partnership for many years on-and-off & now finally have reached the agreement.
Confirming the recent rumors, on the 4th of June 2018, Microsoft confirmed the acquiring of coder hangout GitHub, for $7.5 billion to further enhance its cloud computing services. The deal is expected to be closed by the end of this year.
What’s GitHub & Microsoft CEO’s Say on This?
Reportedly, GitHub was reconnoitering the possibility of a potential IPO six months back but was impressed by the performance & leadership of the recent CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella, who has been pushing the company to embrace open source technology initiatives during his four years journey as the head of Microsoft.
In 2015, the last value of GitHub was $2 million. It has been said that after the co-founder Chris Wanstrath’s announcement of intentions to step down, GitHub was hunting for a new CEO for the last nine months. The rumors of Microsoft sniffing around, the most widely-adopted developer tool in the world, GitHub have been in the scene since 2016, but both companies didn’t respond on the deal before this. GitHub’s CEO Wanstrath said:
“He could never have imagined this deal a decade ago when Git was a powerful but niche tool, clouds were just things in the sky, and Microsoft was a very different company.”
However, now Wanstrath’s response to the agreement is
“I’m extremely proud of what GitHub and our community have accomplished over the past decade, and I can’t wait to see what lies ahead. The future of software development is bright, and I’m thrilled to be joining forces with Microsoft to help make it a reality. Their focus on developer’s lines up perfectly with our own, and their scale, tools and global cloud will play a huge role in making GitHub even more valuable for developers everywhere.”
With its around 28 million software developers globally, GitHub is one of the world’s largest developer’s community. Interestingly, Microsoft was not the only one chasing GitHub, Amazon was also interested in taking over GitHub in the past. Reps from Alphabet’s Google were also in a chat with the company about an acquisition in the recent weeks; according to the sources. But Microsoft’s high bid was enough to keep these companies at bay.
It Is Not the First Time Microsoft Has Made Such a Big Deal.
Ever since Nadella has become the CEO, the company has rapidly increased in investing in open source technology. In 2016 Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn was $27 million.
Speaking of Microsoft, the CEO Satya Nadella shared his thoughts on GitHub as,
“We are committed to being stewards of the GitHub community, which will retain its developer-first ethos, operate independently and remain an open platform. However, the real power comes when every developer can create together, collaborate, share code and build on each other’s work.”
Public’s Response To This Acquisition
“GitHub will retain its developer-first ethos, operate independently and remain an open platform” – Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft
So, how will the users take it, the two world’s majors: “crowd-sourced code repository” taken over by “software company”?
The majority of the response on Twitter & Reddit regarding this acquisition has been negative till now. People are already declaring this as to be the death of GitHub. Some users have also announced the intention to switch services to GitLab & BitBucket.
The details on how and what degree of ownership & control Microsoft will have the code stored on GitHub aren’t clear yet, which has also made users cautious.
“A recent Twitter poll from Bryan Lunduke exposed that 68% of existing GitHub users would move to another service if the acquisition went ahead, and only 25% of Twitter users thought that it was good news.”
Let’s see what the further announcements regarding the alleged acquisition & how the story does pan out with these two companies & their respective users are. If things proceed well, Microsoft would be able to get access to millions of software developers & a considerable wealth of data.
What’s your take on the GitHub acquisition deal? If you’re a developer or in social media marketing management, let us know how will it affect you?
