Business Insider has reported on talks between Microsoft and the code-sharing site GitHub.
According to reports Microsoft is hoping to acquire the code-sharing website, which would cement Microsoft’s role as a company built around tools for developers.
It is unclear whether the talks between the companies are still ongoing, however, confirmation could be revealed as soon as Monday.
GitHub was last valued in 2015 and was worth $2 billion. The cost of an acquisition could be over $5 billion, based on a price that was floated in 2017.
An analyst of Stratechery, Ben Thompson, wrote: “The enterprise offering will fold nicely into Microsoft’s other businesses but … the real win for Microsoft is not incremental peanuts in enterprise revenue but winning hearts and minds with developers broadly.”
“In other words, not only should sceptics not be worried about Microsoft unduly favouring their own platforms, they should also be excited that, more than any other potential acquirer, Microsoft is likely to push the individual and community aspects that make GitHub so unique,” he added.
GitHub has been without a CEO for the past year after CEO and founder Chris Wanstrath, stepped down 10 months ago. The group has faced a net loss of tens of millions as revenues have been outpaced by the company’s expenditure.
Over 24 million developers worldwide use the platform to host codes and work together on programming tasks. The paid features reportedly bring in $200 million in annual revenue.
According to the group’s user report, 52 percent of Fortune 50 corporations are GitHub Enterprise customers.
According to reports, this is not the first time that Microsoft has approached GitHub and the groups were in talks in 2016. GitHub has denied those reports.
