GitHub could be acquired by Microsoft

[Joakim]

On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 20:00:45 UTC, Maksim Fomin wrote:
> On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 19:26:23 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 19:06:52 UTC, Maksim Fomin wrote:
>>
>> Unlikely, you don't spend $7.5 billion on a company because 
>> you want to send a message that you're a good dev tools 
>> company, then neglect it.
>
> You have no idea about how big corporations' management spends 
> money.
> As with Nokia and Skype - I don't know whether it was initially 
> a plan to destroy products or management was just silly.
>
>> I suggest you look at their online slides linked from the 
>> Nadella blog post to see their stated plan, such as 
>> integrating github into VS Code more:
>>
>> http://aka.ms/ms06042018
>>
>> and likely vastly overpaid for an unprofitable company in the 
>> first place
>
> :) this is exactly how such deals are done - paying $7.5 bl. 
> for nonprofitable company.
> Unfortunately, their books are unavailable because they are 
> private company, but scarce information in the web suggests 
> that in most of their years they have losses.
>
> Just as rough estimate: to support $7.5 bl valuation Microsoft 
> must turn -$30 ml. net loss company into business generating 
> around $750 ml. for many years. There is no way to get these 
> money from the market. Alternatively, the project can have 
> payoff if something is broken and Microsoft cash flows increase 
> by $750 ml. This is more likely...
>
>> but they emphasize that they intend to keep github open and 
>> independent.
>
> They can claim anything which suits best their interests right 
> now. Or, as alternative, github can be broken in a such way, 
> that their promises on surface are kept. Business is badly 
> compatible with opensource by design.

I just finished reading this interesting article by a former 
Microsoft business guy, which makes the same point I did, that MS 
is unlikely to neglect github or otherwise force it in some 
direction to leverage it:

https://stratechery.com/2018/the-cost-of-developers/

You're right that MS has had many acquisitions go badly already, 
such as Nokia and Skype (though I'd argue both were long-term 
doomed before they were bought), but, as always, incompetence is 
the much more likely reason than malice.