Skype will cease operations on May 5, after 20 years of reshaping the way people communicate across borders. Microsoft, the owner of the application, announced the decision to retire the online communication service. The tech giant stated that discontinuing Skype will allow it to focus on its internally developed Teams service, simplifying its communication offerings.
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Founded in 2003, Skype quickly disrupted the landline industry with its voice and video calls, becoming a household name. At its peak, Skype had hundreds of millions of users. However, in recent years, the platform struggled to keep up with more user-friendly and reliable competitors like Zoom and Slack from Salesforce.
According to Reuters, part of Skype’s decline is due to the technology it relied on, which is no longer suitable for the smartphone era. When the COVID-19 pandemic and remote work increased the need for online business calls, Microsoft pushed Teams by integrating it with other Office applications, leveraging its existing user base, which was once core to Skype.
To ease the transition, Skype users will be able to sign into Teams for free on any device using their existing credentials, with chats and contact data automatically transferred.
This marks another setback for Microsoft in a series of high-profile missteps, including Internet Explorer and the Windows Phone operating system. Other major tech companies, such as Google, have also faced difficulties with online communication tools, having made several attempts with applications like Hangouts and Duo.
Microsoft did not disclose Skype's latest user numbers but assured there would be no job cuts due to this decision. Teams, meanwhile, boasts around 320 million active users per month.
When Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011 for $8.5 billion, surpassing Google and Facebook in the bidding war, about 150 million people used the service monthly. By 2020, that number had dropped to about 23 million, despite a brief surge during the pandemic.
On Friday, Microsoft stated, "Skype has been an integral part of shaping modern communications... It’s been an honor to be part of this journey."
