According to the reports, the software leader Microsoft has approved of buying out GitHub Inc. for $7.5 Billion.
Github is the world’s leading company for providing open-source code hosting services.
GitHub was last valued at $2 billion back in 2015, however, the terms of the present deal are still not known and have neither been publicized by the company.
Microsoft said in a statement, “it will acquire GitHub for USD 7.5 billion in Microsoft stock.” Subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory review, the deal is expected to be finalized by the end of the year.
GitHub Inc. is a private company which is basically an internet-based hosting service designs and develops an online platform to enable the users to store and share codes repositories (a central location in which data is stored and managed) with friends, colleagues, classmates and others. A report in 2017 had uncovered that the company’s platform hosts more than 57 million repositories, and it has 20 million users.
On the other hand, the most popular global trader of software, Microsoft is a US-based company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Its best software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers.
The fascinating part is that GitHub chose Microsoft partially because of the company’s CEO, Satya Nadella. Microsoft has been investing in open source technology at a speed of light since Satya Nadella has been appointed as the CEO.
This deal is likely to lend a helping hand to Microsoft in making an addition to its programming tools and will also use the open-source Git version control system for Windows development. The acquisition possibly indicates that the people will start to see even closer incorporation between Microsoft’s developer tools and the service.
Many corporations, including Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google collaborate with GitHub to use its service for documentation and to store their corporate code. It has been observed that Microsoft has been discussing with GitHub on and off for a few years and lately, it succeeded in presenting its idea of acquisition.
It seems like GitHub will be added to the list, giving Microsoft an edge in open-source development and helping it to grow even more in the world of technology.