Microsoft Acquires Github for $7.5 Billion

After several weeks of rumours, Microsoft has confirmed that it has acquired GitHub, the popular Git-based code sharing and collaboration service. This is Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella’s second big acquisition following the $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn two years ago.

The software giant is paying $7.5 billion in stocks for GitHub that was last valued at $2 billion back in 2012.

In December last year, Microsoft killed its own GitHub competitor, Codeplex and is currently one of the top contributors to the platform (With over 1,000 employees actively pushing GitHub repositories. The coming days will tell maybe the move will help Microsoft earn some much-needed trust and respect from developers.

“We will accelerate enterprise developers’ use of GitHub, with our direct sales and partner channels and access to Microsoft’s global cloud infrastructure and services,” -Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella.

On the issue of general concerns of important tools and internet services being consolidated into the hands of a few big tech companies, Nadella explaines that the company’s commitment to open source solutions should help to ease the concerns.“When it comes to our commitment to open source, judge us by the actions we have taken in the recent past, our actions today, and in the future,” he said. Nadella added that the deal, expected to close by the end of this year, will speed moves into cloud and artificial intelligence.