EU commission approves Microsoft’s GitHub buyout

Back in June, Microsoft announced plans to acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion. Since then, the code repository has found a new CEO and discussed plans for the future under the Microsoft banner, although the deal had to get through the EU's antitrust commission before closing. Fortunately for Microsoft, a ruling was reached fairly swiftly, so the deal will go through with no issues.

Whenever a major tech company announces a big acquisition, the EU will usually look into antitrust concerns. The case was no different here, Microsoft requested EU approval of the acquisition last month and now today, the commission has approved it.

As reported by Reuters, the EU antitrust commission said the following in a statement: “The Commission found that the combination of Microsoft and GitHub’s activities on these markets would raise no competition concerns because the merged entity would continue to face significant competition from other players on both markets”.

While GitHub will remain as an open platform, Microsoft is hoping to use the service to boost its own cloud efforts. In addition, the service may get Microsoft account integration, although regular GitHub accounts will remain intact for the foreseeable future.

KitGuru Says: Some developers are skeptical about Microsoft's intentions with GitHub but I don't see things changing too much. Especially with Microsoft making more of an effort to support open-source software efforts. 

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