It’s official: Microsoft has agreed to acquire GitHub. And for a staggering sum of $7.5 billion.

“Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness, and innovation,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a prepared statement. “We recognize the community responsibility we take on with this agreement and will do our best work to empower every developer to build, innovate and solve the world’s most pressing challenges.”

GitHub is described as the world’s leading software development platform, and it currently served over 28 million developers worldwide. But why would Microsoft spend such a heady sum for what is essentially plumbing?

Simple: In this age of competing cloud and mobile platforms, many of which it does not control, Microsoft needs to get its superior software development tools and services in front of more developers. GitHub users can, of course, continue to use whatever tools they prefer. But Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, and other Microsoft developer offerings will now be tailored to work natively with the service.

As part of the deal, Microsoft’s Nat Friedman, a Xamarin co-founder, will take over as GitHub CEO. And GitHub’s outgoing CEO, Chris Wanstrath, will become a Microsoft technical fellow and report to Scott Guthrie. GitHub will become part of Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud business segment once the acquisition is complete.

News of Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub first leaked last week.

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