The company's open source project development will be beneficial to both Microsoft and Github (image via Github)
Microsoft is buying GitHub for a price valued at $7.5 billion, as announced on Monday. The software-coding sharing platform was last valued at $1.9 billion. The purchase would enable the company to make a turn and head back to where it was a decade ago and maintain itself in a way where it was in its earliest stage.
Microsoft's story first began with the progression of developer tools. Bill Gates and Paul Allen both co-founded the company and opened opportunities for hobbyists to develop a new micro-computer kit, the MITS Altair.
Github is a platform that was founded in 2008 and is a host to open-source software and is a service to more than 28 million users - storing 85 million code archives. Which allows their users to share, improve and edit code - which has the opportunity for open-source development.
Microsoft currently has more than 2 million updates to the Gitbuh project, which strengthens their activity level on the platform and provides the organization with an increased sense of innovation, openness and developer freedom. As the company movies away from dependency on the Windows operating system to Linux-based platforms, the company will be pursuing more ways to connect with the developer community.
Github is also used by various other big-name companies such as PayPal, Spotify and Airbnb. It operates as an independent platform among its users to provide an open environment for each developer in the industry.
Initially, Microsoft was pursuing options to purchase the platform in the past, but in the past few weeks especially, the talks to purchase the platform had increased speculation until it finally took place. It was first reported last week that the potential for a deal would be taking place. This will enable Microsoft to grow its community with developers using the platform and enhance the progress of sharing open-sourced software. The new deal also focuses largely on cloud computing and the usability of smart devices - such as the internet of things. I think they should just let it exist organically not forcing an agenda.
Corporations around the world use Github, including Microsoft and Alphabet's Inc. Google to store and collaborate on their corporate code. Github has lost a lot of money over an extended amount of time - the company lost $66 million in 2016 and has been looking for a new CEO for nine months. The company's revenue was worth $98 million for nine months in 2016.
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