Microsoft Buys GitHub for $7.5 Billion, Moving to Grow in Coding’s New Era

Article Summary:

Microsoft, fully embracing a model it once saw as a threat, said on Monday that it was buying GitHub, an open software platform used by 28 million software developers, for $7.5 billion. The deal is a bid by Microsoft to gain ground in the internet era of software development, where applications increasingly run on remote data centers — on so-called cloud computing.

AppIt Review:

Microsoft has a history of dedication to supporting software developers, so it’s possible that this acquisition will mean good things for the community. It sounds like those that are satisfied with their current tools will be able to continue using them, unaffected; however, as Microsoft expects, new and improved tools and integrations will likely make a switch to their products more enticing. For example, having GitHub onboard VSCode could lead to a better source control mechanism. It is also expected that, considering how crucial software version control is to cloud services, integrating GitHub with Azure will turn the Microsoft’s cloud service into a powerful competitor to AWS. Will this ultimately lead to the creation of comparable platforms by Amazon and Google? It remains to be seen, but competition amongst the giants is typically a good thing for the rest of us.

Read Full Article at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/technology/microsoft-github-cloud-computing.html