Google Cloud was interested in acquiring GitHub before Microsoft completed the deal to purchase the world’s largest platform for collaborative coding this spring, according to the unit’s head Diane Green. While speaking at a recent Fortune Magazine event in San Francisco, Ms. Green said “she wouldn’t have minded buying them” in reference to GitHub but hadn’t disclosed whether the Mountain View, California-based tech giant ever launched an official bid for the company. Regardless, the fact that Microsoft now added a major asset to its Azure division that directly rivals Google Cloud is still “OK,” according to Ms. Green.
Microsoft confirmed the GitHub acquisition in early June, announcing it in the form of an all-stock deal valued at $7.5 billion. The transaction will officially close later this year, providing bolstering Microsoft’s presence on the global development scene, particularly open-source software. The Redmond, Washington-based juggernaut intends to migrate GitHub to Azure and while it may offer some bundled cloud packages to large-scale developers, the online tool will continue operating independently. Ms. Green said she’s hoping Microsoft will keep GitHub “neutral” for everyone’s sake, including that of Google who has several popular open-source projects on the platform.
Some 28 million developers are presently contributing to over 85 million active repositories on GitHub, with more being added every day since the platform launched in 2008. A number of industry analysts remain skeptical about Microsoft’s ability to generate a significant return on its investment for the foreseeable future, though the acquisition itself shouldn’t place a major burden on the company whose market cap is over hundred times the size of the GitHub deal, especially since no cash will exchange hands as part of the transaction. No tech giants voiced any kind of intentions to pull from GitHub after the platform lost its independence. Google itself continues to push its cloud offerings across industries, both as standalone solutions for enterprises and as platforms for powering features of many of its other products and services.