Microsoft officially closes $7.5 billion purchase of GitHub

Microsoft has officially acquired the developer platform, GitHub.

In June, Microsoft confirmed reports that the company was seeking a deal to purchase GitHub, a hosting service and platform geared towards computer programmers and developers. GitHub was last valued at $2 billion. Microsoft acquired them for $7.5 billion.

In an announcement posted on the Official Microsoft Blog on Friday, the company announced the completion of the GitHub acquisition and laid out the future of the service. “GitHub will retain its developer-first ethos, operate independently, and remain an open platform,” Microsoft’s post says.

Nat Friedman, the former CEO of Xamarin -- a cross-platform development company that Microsoft acquired back in 2016 -- is taking over as the CEO of GitHub. In a GitHub blog post also published on Friday, Friedman echoed Microsoft’s vision for the platform’s future. “GitHub will operate independently as a community, platform, and business,” wrote Friedman. “As the world’s largest developer community, GitHub brings together over 31 million developers to create, collaborate, share, and build on each other’s work. Our vision is to serve every developer on the planet, by being the best place to build software.”

GitHub has seen ongoing growth, regardless of the impending the Microsoft acquisition. When the deal was first announced over the summer, GitHub boasted a user base of 28 million. As long as Microsoft and CEO Friedman stay true to their commitments, GitHub show continue to provide a premiere platform and community for developers, except now they’re backed by the $760 billion software giant known as Microsoft.