• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 19, 2019

Continuing to bulk up on collaborative software, Microsoft’s GitHub unit just agreed to buy Pull Panda.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

With the deal, GitHub is expecting better code reviews -- meaning better code for software teams of various shapes and sizes.

Pull Panda specializes in helping teams work together to create better code. Specific Pull Panda services include “Pull Reminders,” which incorporate Slack to improve communication between developer and Pull Assigner. The latter automatically distributes code across teams.

“All three of these are now available for free as one GitHub Marketplace application,” according to Shanku Niyogi, senior vice president of product at GitHub.

Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5 billion last year.

Despite the massive price tag, tech analyst Ben Thompson said the deal made sense for the software giant. “Lacking a platform with sufficient users to attract developers, Microsoft has to ‘acquire’ developers directly through superior tooling -- and now, with GitHub, a superior cloud offering with a meaningful amount of network effects,” he observed at the time.

Trip Chowdhry, managing director at Global Equities Research, called the deal a “groundbreaking, industry-changing acquisition.” In a research note, he suggested that "Apple should have acquired GitHub.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described the GitHub acquisition as strengthening Microsoft's position as a “developer-first company.”

At the time of the deal, GitHub supported approximately 24 million developers around the world.