That would mean Apple did something to positively invest in their developer ecosystem which would certainly be very unusual.
I hope that scenario does not unfold, for anyone involved.
Developers, developers, developers.
They are deeply integrating GitHub into Azure and Tfs, and integrating that with Visual Studio, creating a top-notch devops platform for you to develop for Windows or Azure.
And now with their move into Linux, they are creating an image just like the old Borland.
Between LinkedIn and GitHub they probably have the best data for identifying great devs/engineers as well as encouraging future devs to use their products. Soft power.
How GitLab can have this kind of high evaluation is beyond me when they sale only one part of what Atlassian( bitbucket) offers.
From my experience working with that, it's very nice. But there is always the anti-Microsoft bias around, so GitLab may do well for that reason alone.
MSFT integrated sales channel. LinkedIn data + Github data is pretty much everyone who buys any "IT"/"software" services.
* Azure * Azure * Azure * Azure * Azure