GitHub has opened an office in Japan, its first location outside of the U.S., as it bids to sell its online code repository in the country’s lucrative enterprise and corporate software market.
GitHub, which has 9.7 million users and hosts 23.4 million repositories on its site, has established its office in Tokyo and a Japanese subsidiary in the country. It paid tribute to the contribution of Japanese developers — “GitHub couldn’t exist without the Japanese open source community — after all, our site is built on Rails, which is built on Ruby, an open source project started in Japan” — but it expanded into the country to make money not just appease its community.
To that end, the U.S. company has teamed up with Macnica Networks, which will sell its premium software-as-a-service subscription to Japanese corporates and tech companies. Its paid-for service — which includes features such as private repositories — is priced from $7 per month, while packages for larger organizations are between $25 to $200 per month. Early customers in Japan include Hitachi Systems, CyberAgent and GREE.
“Japanese companies have a rich history of being at the leading edge of technology innovation and adapting to changing global markets. As software continues to permeate every aspect of business, we’re investing in helping our Japanese customers collaborate, build and ship great software with GitHub Enterprise,” said newly-appointed GitHub Japan GM Daisuke Horie in a statement.
With GDP that’s on par with the U.S. and large corporate companies galore, Japan is a popular destination for U.S. software firms that seek to grow their revenue overseas. GitHub initially bootstrapped itself into a popular developer resource, but it raised $100 million from top VC firm Andreessen Horowitz in 2012 and — as today’s Japan launch shows — is out to prove itself as a business not just a resource.
That said, local developers can expect to see plenty of events from GitHub Japan, the next of which will take place in Osaka on June 6.