EU Antitrust Regulators to Rule on Microsoft Acquisition of GitHub by Mid-October

Software giant Microsoft has requested European Union (E.U.) approval of its $7.5 billion acquisition of web-based hosting service GitHub, Reuters reported September 17. According to Reuters, Microsoft filed the request last Friday, and the decision will be made by October 19.

GitHub is an open-source coding website, a repository which hosts developers’ source code projects in a number of different programming languages and keeps track of any changes made. In 2017, the GitHub community reportedly reached 24 million developers, working with 67 million repositories.

With the acquisition, the company is looking to strengthen its cloud computing arm against American electronic commerce company Amazon. If the E.U. competition agency finds serious concerns regarding the acquisition, it can initiate a full-scale investigation.
Last month, Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure introduced a proof-of-authority (PoA) algorithm on its Ethereum (ETH) blockchain product, which will allow a “more efficient” way of building decentralized applications (DApps) for private or consortium networks, where “all consensus participants are known and reputable.”

In May, Amazon’s cloud computing arm Amazon Web Services (AWS) partnered with ConsenSys’ blockchain startup Kaleido to bring simplified blockchain cloud platforms to its clients. Kaleido is an ETH blockchain-based business cloud that provides businesses with ready-made blockchain applications.