Microsoft’s About-Face on Open Source Contributed to 10x Valuation Growth

An article at Forbes (by way of CNBC and Slashdot) details how Microsoft, under current CEO Satya Nadella, has grown its valution ten times to $3.06 trillion. Nadella, who replaced CEO Steve Ballmer in 2014, ushered in an era of increased collaboration, including a significant change in attitude regarding open source. Under Ballmer, open source was labeled “viral software” that couldn’t be trusted and would do harm to businesses that use it. But now the company makes direct open source contributions, while Linux is the top OS running on Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. Certainly a number of factors have contributed to Microsoft’s growth over these past ten years (such as acquisitions like LinkedIn, Mojang, and GitHub), but it’s safe to say that embracing open source has also helped Microsoft along the way.