End of an Era: Skype Shuts Down This Monday

Microsoft is shutting down its Skype video call service this Monday, May 5, after two decades of operation.

The company confirmed the end of the service in February this year. It stated that this move will allow Microsoft to focus on Microsoft Teams, its other video calling platform, and streamline its communication offerings.

"With Teams, users have access to many of the same core features they use in Skype, such as one-on-one and group calls, messaging, and file sharing," Microsoft said in a statement.

In 2011, Microsoft made its biggest acquisition to date and paid $8.5 billion for the service, which had around 150 million users at the time. By 2020, that number had dropped to around 23 million users, despite a brief resurgence during the pandemic.

In recent years, the platform has struggled to keep up with more user-friendly and reliable rivals such as Zoom and Slack, while Microsoft chose to prioritize Teams and other products, according to Reuters.

The decline happened in part because Skype’s app technology was not well-suited for the smartphone era, Microsoft claims. The company took advantage of the pandemic to integrate Teams into other Office programs, aiming to attract corporate users.

To ease the transition, Microsoft says Skype users will be able to log into Teams for free on any compatible device using their existing credentials, with automatic migration of chats and contacts.

With this, Skype joins a series of discontinued Microsoft services, such as the Internet Explorer browser and Windows Phone.

It remains unclear how many users or employees will be affected by Skype's shutdown. Microsoft has not commented on the matter.

Source: CNN

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