Microsoft Obtains GitHub

June 4, 2018

Over this past weekend, Microsoft made a deal to acquire GitHub. To those of which know what GitHub is, and to those who don’t. GitHub is a large code repository that has become very popular with developers/companies who work and share projects, documentation, and code. There are roughly 80 million repositories hosted on GitHub and about 30 million developers who contribute to them – this is Microsoft’s second biggest purchase since the acquisition of LinkedIn for $26 Billion back in 2016, and Minecraft for $2.5 Billion in 2012. Microsoft is paying $7.5 billion in stock for GitHub in a deal that should close towards the end of 2018. In general GitHub, hasn’t scaled well due to its community issues, and because of that, there are legitimate concerns that Microsoft will need to address. Due to GitHub popularity among developers will eventually bank Microsoft some much-needed trust and respect from developers. For slower moving business and enterprise level companies, Microsoft newest acquisition will hopefully push for more trust/use for projects and source control, simply because Microsoft is already trusted across many software and services by these companies.

The main question around this acquisition will be what Microsoft does with GitHub in the future. Since its acquisition in 2016, LinkedIn has largely remained separate, except a few integrations into Microsoft’s Office software. Microsoft’s Minecraft acquisition has been managed separately. Therefore, it’s likely that GitHub should stay as separate as possible to maintain developer trust. On the other hand, the community should expect an even closer integration between Microsoft’s developer tools and this service. Microsoft is the biggest contributor to GitHub; they have thousands of employees actively pushing code to GitHub repositories. Additionally, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella stated: “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.”

This means that Microsoft will need to earn trust and respect from developers. Although their community often voices their concerns about Microsoft’s past abuses – referencing the company’s fiascos involving Skype and Nokia. Microsoft has struggled with developer attention for years, which is believed why Universal Windows Apps platform hasn’t taken off. Microsoft has spent recent years improving Windows 10, so it’s a respectable development box, and tools like Visual Studio Code have soared in popularity with developers. Microsoft won’t be able to address the general concern that important tools and internet services keep being consolidated into the hands of a few big tech companies. Microsoft knows it needs to treat this acquisition with the utmost care and transparency.

We recognize the responsibility we take on with this agreement. We are committed to being stewards of the GitHub community, which will retain its developer-first ethos, operate independently and remain an open platform. We will always listen to developer feedback and invest in both fundamentals and new capabilities.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO

I believe this is a positive movement for Microsoft and GitHub users. Microsoft has actively been pushing open source technology since the company has open source software such as Visual Studio, PowerShell, and Microsoft Edge’s JavaScript engine. These are the sources that have met success by the developing community, and has given the company much needed respect and the acquisition of GitHub will prove that even further.