Microsoft paid $ 7.5 billion for returning to the roots

GITHUB Head Chris Vanstratet, Vice President of Microsoft Nat Fredman, Head of Microsoft, Sataea Ondalel and Corporation Corporation Emy Hood

Microsoft said that she bought GitHub, the largest open service for hosting IT projects. According to Bloomberg, Microsoft paid $ 7.5 billion. The transaction, which is planned to be closed during 2018, actually returns the company to the origins: it once started by creating equipment for amateur programmers, but later switched to another business model.

Details

• GITHUB will be responsible for the Vice President of Microsoft Scott Gatrine, who is engaged in cloud services and artificial intelligence in the company.
• GITHUB is one of the most famous services in the world for programmers, which allows you to store project codes in the public domain. The Microsoft press release says 27 million developers use GITHUB, more than 85 million repositories with code have been opened on the service.
• It is also used by large IT giants, including Microsoft itself: about 4,5500 employees of the company used the GITHUB platform in 2017. In Google, 2267 people worked with open codes with open codes. The GITHUB user list also employees of Apple, Amazon, Yandex, Uber, Facebook, etc.
• The statement by the head of Microsoft, Satia Odalla, emphasizes that Microsoft wants to develop projects with open codes and is not going to introduce any new restrictions on GitHub.

Context

• According to Bloomberg, GitHub decided to sell the company instead of entering an IPO and chose Microsoft, including because of the positive impressions from Microsoft, Satia Nadalla. In 2015, GitHub was estimated at $ 2 billion, but the company does not manage to earn money, and it has serious financial problems - for three quarters of 2016 (recent available data) losses amounted to $ 66 million. In addition, GITHUB had difficulties with the search for CEO.
• The publication also adds that the purchase actually means the return of Microsoft to the “origins”: the company once began with the creation of equipment for those who were engaged in programming, but later abandoned this idea-open platforms directly contradicted the business models of the company with a paid subscription to its tools.
• However, during the time of allocation, much has changed: he headed the company in 2014, and immediately began its reorganization, in particular, officially depriving Windows with the status of the main product, cloud services and technologies based on artificial intelligence have now become a priority for the company. At the annual Google conference, the company introduced updates for its services, the vast majority of which will now work with artificial intelligence. In May, Microsoft overtook Google's capitalization.

Artem Gubenko