Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's master plan is about to be put to a $7.5 billion test
When it comes to the $7.5 billion acquisition of GitHub, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella urged software developers to "judge us by the actions we have taken in the recent past, our actions today and in the future."
From Microsoft's perspective, and Nadella's, GitHub fits right in to the master plan: The company has been investing heavily in open source in the four years since Nadella took the reins. In fact, Microsoft is the single biggest corporate contributor to open source projects on GitHub, edging out competitors like Google and Facebook. Microsoft even uses GitHub internally to build some of its products.
And yet, if Nadella sounds defensive, it's with good reason, as not everyone in the tech industry loves the deal — some GitHub users are already even decamping to competitors like the venture-backed GitLab and Atlassian BitBucket before the deal even closes.
