Microsoft to Buy Coding Site GitHub for $7.5 Billion

Microsoft Corp said it would buy privately held coding website GitHub Inc for $7.5 billion in an all-stock deal to expand its clout among software developers.

GitHub supplies coding tools for developers and calls itself the world’s largest code host with more than 28 million developers using its platform.

“Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation,” said Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said in a statement.

Microsoft’s Nat Friedman will take over as the Chief Executive of San Francisco-headquartered GitHub, whose current CEO Chris Wanstrath will become a Microsoft technical fellow. Microsoft last year shut down CodePlex, its own rival for GitHub, saying the latter was the dominant location for open source sharing and that most such projects had already migrated there.