After years of connecting people across the globe, Microsoft officially retired Skype as of May 5. It was once a pioneer in internet-based communication and video calling your loved ones living overseas. Skype’s shutdown feels like the end of an era.
Skype: The Rise and Fall of a VoIP Pioneer
In a blog post, president of collaborative apps and platforms at Microsoft, Jeff Teper, revealed that the company would be retiring Skype. The move is to “streamline our free consumer communications offerings so we can more easily adapt to customer needs.”
The software was a necessary innovation. It was designed to “connect with the people that matter most in your life and work.” It allowed us to chat via voice or video call with anyone for free, wherever in the world they are. Users can also send “text” messages using the app.
For some, Skype was the first software of its kind that they had ever used. According to James Hennesy, editor at Australian news outlet Capital Brief, “But since then, we’re talking about the mid 2000s, it’s gone through a series of acquisitions and a real loss of its strategic lead.”
When it was leading the market, the app had millions of subscribers. But it had difficulty keeping up with other platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Fortunately, Microsoft will migrate Skype into MS Teams, the company’s “modern communications and collaboration hub.” This isn’t a first for Microsoft, since they did the same with Hotmail in 2013 and migrated it to Outlook.
Microsoft said in a statement (via USA Today), “The timing of this shift is driven by the significant advancements and adoption of Microsoft Teams. In the past two years, the number of minutes spent in meetings by consumer users of Teams has grown 4X. And Teams free offers many of the same core features as Skype: 1:1 calls, group calls, messaging, and file sharing, as well as enhanced features like hosting meetings, managing calendars, and building and joining communities — all for free.”
If you still have a Skype account, you will not lose any chats, contacts, etc. When you log into the free version of Teams with your Skype username and password, your account will still be there, but integrated into Teams.
