Updated June 4, 2018: Bloomberg now reports that Microsoft has reached a deal to acquire GitHub. The deal, the report says, may be formally announced this week. Details of the reported acquisition, including its cost, aren't yet available. The original story follows.
Microsoft has reportedly held talks about a potential acquisition of GitHub, reports Business Insider. According to the report, Microsoft and GitHub have entertained an acquisition in recent years, but the talks have recently turned more serious.
It's unclear if the talks are still going on, but CNBC confirmed the discussions with a source, noting that the idea of an acquisition initially grew out of talks about a $35 million marketing partnership.
GitHub has operated independently since its launch and was last valued at $2 billion. An acquisition could potentially cost Microsoft more than $5 billion, CNBC reports. GitHub is currently without a CEO, following last year's departure of Chris Wanstrath, who was GitHub's founder and previously held the position.
GitHub operates as an open-source service for developers, acting as a hosting service for version control and source code management. Microsoft, which has been more open to embracing the open-source community in recent years. Most recently, that effort resulted in the release of the original file manager as an open-source project on GitHub. The two have also partnered, with Microsoft releasing its App Center App{.nofollow} in the GitHub Marketplace.
