For the past few days, rumors have been floating around that Microsoft is considering an acquisition of GitHub. While earlier reports pegged this transaction to be valued at around $2 billion, Microsoft has today announced that it is officially acquiring GitHub for $7.5 billion.
According to a blog post by Microsoft, the all-stock transaction will be completed by the end of this year. Satya Nadella had the following to say regarding the matter:
Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation. We recognize the community responsibility we take on with this agreement and will do our best work to empower every developer to build, innovate and solve the world’s most pressing challenges.
GitHub will continue to operate as is, with its 28 million-strong developer community given complete freedom to use any operating system or tools that they want.
Furthermore, Microsoft Corporate Vice President and founder of Xamarin Nat Friedman will assume the role of GitHub's new CEO while the current CEO Chris Wanstrath will become a Microsoft technical fellow. Wanstrath, who will be reporting to Microsoft's Scott Guthrie, stated that:
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 developers 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.
Profits from GitHub will be reported under Microsoft's Intelligent Cloud division in financial reports.
In a separate blog post, Wanstrath stated that despite his disagreements with Microsoft in the past, the company has now changed with increased focus on developers and open source software. Furthermore, the company's successful acquisitions of Minecraft and LinkedIn has showed the executive that the Redmond tech giant is serious about growing the businesses it purchases.
Lastly, Wanstrath noted that both Microsoft and GitHub now have shared goals, which includes providing an open platform for developers, making software development easier and more accessible, and believing that they can do "greater things together than alone".
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