INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Microsoft today announced its plans to acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion in stock
Unsurprisingly, that sent a few shock waves through the developer community, which still often eyes Microsoft with considerable unease
During a conference call this morning, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, incoming GitHub CEO (and Xamarin founder) Nat Friedman and GitHub
co-founder and outgoing CEO Chris Wanstrath laid out the plans for GitHub’s future under Microsoft.The core message everybody on
today’s call stressed was that GitHub will continue to operate as an independent company
That’s very much the approach Microsoft took with its acquisition of LinkedIn, but to some degree, it’s also an admission that Microsoft
is aware of its reputation among many of the developers who call GitHub their home
GitHub will remain an open platform that any developer can plug into and extend, Microsoft promises
It’ll support any cloud and any device.Unsurprisingly, while the core of GitHub won’t change, Microsoft does plan to extend GitHub’s
enterprise services and integrate them with its own sales and partner channels
And Nadella noted that the company will use GitHub to bring Microsoft’s developer tools and services “to new audiences.”With Nat
Friedman taking over as CEO, GitHub will have a respected technologist at the helm
Microsoft’s acquisition and integration of Xamarin has, at least from the outside, been a success (and Friedman himself always seems very
happy about the outcome when I talk to him), so I think this bodes quite well for GitHub
After joining Microsoft, Friedman ran the developer services team at the company
Wanstrath, who only took over the CEO role again after its last CEO was ousted after harassment scandal at the company, had long said that
he wanted to step down and take a more active product role
And that’s what’s happening now that Friedman is taking over
Wanstrath will become a technical fellow and work on “strategic software initiatives” at Microsoft.Indeed, during an interview after the
acquisition was announced, Friedman repeatedly noted that he thinks GitHub is the most important developer company today — and it turns
out that he started advocating for a closer relationship between the two companies right after he joined Microsoft two years ago.During
today’s press call, Friedman also stressed Microsoft’s commitment to keeping GitHub as open as it is today — but he also plans to
expand the service and its community
“WewanttobringmoredevelopersandmorecapabilitiestoGitHub, he said
“Becauseasanetworkandasagroupofpeopleinacommunity, GitHubisstronger, thebiggeritis.”Friedman echoed that in our interview later in the
day and noted that he expected the developer community to be skeptical of the mashup of these two companies
“There is always healthy skepticism in the developer community,” he told me
“I would ask developers to look at the last few years of Microsoft history and really honestly Microsoft’s transformation into an open
source company.” He asked developers to judge Microsoft by that and noted that what really matters, of course, is that the company will
follow through on the promises it made today.As for the product itself, Friedman noted that everything GitHub does should be about making a
And to get started, that’ll mean making developing in the cloud easier
“WethinkbroadlyaboutthenewandcompellingtypesofwaysthatwecanintegratecloudservicesintoGitHub,” he noted
“And this doesn’t just apply to our cloud
GitHub is an open platform
So we have the ability for anyone to plug their cloud services into GitHub, and make it easier for you to go from code to cloud
And it extends beyond the cloud as well
code to mobile, code to edge device, code to IoT
Every workflow that a developer wants to pursue, we will support.”Another area the company will work on is the GitHub Marketplace
Microsoft says that it will offer all of its developer tools and services in the GitHub Marketplace.And unsurprisingly, VS Code,
Microsoft’s free and open source code editor, will get deeply integrated GitHub support.“Our vision
is reallyallaboutempoweringdevelopersandcreatingahomewhereyoucanuseanylanguage, anyoperatingsystem, anycloud, anydeviceforeverydeveloper,
whetheryourstudent, ahobbyist, alargecompany, astartuporanythinginbetween. GitHub is the homeforalldevelopers,” said Friedman
In our interview, he also stressed that his focus will be on making “GitHub better at making GitHub” and that he plans to do so by
bringing Microsoft’s resources and infrastructure to the code hosting service, while at the same time leaving it to operate
independently. It’s unclear whether all of these commitments today will easy developers’ fears of losing GitHub as a relatively neutral
third-party in the ecosystem.Nadella, who is surely aware of this, addressed this directly today
“Werecognizetheresponsibilitywetakeonwiththisagreement,” he said. “WearecommittedtobeingstewardsoftheGitHubcommunity,
whichwillretainitsdeveloper-firstethosoperateindependentlyandremainanopenplatform. Wewillalwayslistentodevelopafeedbackandinvestinbothfunda
mentalsaswellasnewcapabilityoncetheacquisitioncloses.In his prepared remarks, Nadella also stressed Microsoft’s heritage as a
developer-centric company and that is it already the most active organization on GitHub
But more importantly, he addressed Microsoft’s role in the open source community, too
“Wehavealwaysloveddevelopers, andweloveopensourcedevelopers,” he
said. “We’vebeenonajourneyourselveswithopensourceandtheopensourcecommunity. Today,
weareallinwithopensource. Weareactiveintheopensourceecosystem. Wecontributetoopensourceproject
andsomeofourmostvibrantdevelopertoolsandframeworksareopen-sourcedwhenitcomestoourcommitmenttoallsourcejudges,
bytheactionswehavetakenintherecentpastouractionstodayandinthefuture.”
