Atlassian Corp. today announced plans to acquire DX, a startup with a software platform that helps enterprises make their developers more productive.
The deal is worth about $1 billion. Atlassian plans to finance the transaction with a combination of cash and restricted stock.
DX, officially A Software Company Inc., helps engineering organizations measure the quality of the developer experience they provide to team members. The company’s platform quantifies developer experience using a metric called DXI. DX says that a one point DXI improvement corresponds to about 10 hours of saved time per developer per year.
The platform calculates the metric based on 14 different data points. According to DX, they cover details such as how easy it is for developers to release code to production and whether technical issues are addressed efficiently. Companies can use a built-in benchmarking tool to determine how their developer experience compares with the rest of the market.
Alongside high-level DXI fluctuations, DX’s platform also tracks more granular productivity data. It can measure metrics such as the average amount of time required to approve code changes and the percentage of those changes that cause technical issues. To ease analysis, the platform visualizes the collected data in several dozen pre-built dashboards.
Another set of features provided by DX finds development tasks that companies can speed up using artificial intelligence. The platform generates a confidence score that indicates how likely it is a given chore can be automated effectively. It highlights the best AI tool for the task, the amount of time that the tool could save and the financial impact.
After deploying coding assistants, companies can use DX to compare their effectiveness. The performance of AI programming tools often varies from task to task. According to DX, its algorithms can identify which AI tool is suitable for what development task.
The company’s platform is used by more than 350 customers including Dell Technologies Inc., Dropbox Inc. and other major tech firms. Most of those companies are also Atlassian customers. Atlassian plans to integrate technology into its lineup of developer tools after the deal closes later this year.
The publicly-traded software maker offers an AI coding tool, Rovo Dev, that can automate tasks such as running bug tests. When DX’s platform finds a development task that could be sped up with AI, companies can use Rovo Dev to automate it.
Atlassian offers the tool alongside a developer experience platform called Compass. Similarly to DX, it can help companies track developer productivity metrics. Compress also provides engineers with access to software components built by colleagues and technical data about software projects.
The acquisition of DX comes less than a month after Atlassian’s previous startup deal. In early September, it bought The Browser Company Inc. for $610 million. The company develops a browser called Dia that uses AI to speed up tasks such as comparing e-commerce product listings.
Photo: Atlassian