https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/technology/microsoft-github-cloud-computing.html
GitHub founded in 2008 and based in San Francisco, was created largely as a community for software developers to share programming tools and code. It has been a champion of the open-source software movement, with its ethos of freely sharing code in public.
Today, GitHub is used by a wide range in the tech community, from lone programmers to the nation’s largest companies. Developers can share code, make comments and buy software tools. They work in digital storage spaces, called repositories. Some are open to all users; others are closed to members of a team. GitHub now has more than 85 million code repositories. Individuals can use GitHub for free. But there are monthly subscription charges for extra storage, development tools and private repositories. The company does not disclose its revenue, but analysts estimate it is running at $200 million a year.
Amazon is the leader in the cloud market so far, but Microsoft has transformed itself in recent years to become a strong No. 2 as a supplier of cloud computing services. Its vital Office productivity applications and database software are available in cloud versions. Microsoft also competes with Google, IBM, Salesforce and others in the cloud marketplace. All of them are trying to lure software engineers to use their cloud tools and services. The more programmers on a company’s platform, the more software applications are created, attracting customers and still more developers — a flywheel of growth and profit.