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Microsoft

Microsoft Shuts Down Skype 46

Posted by msmash from the hanging-up dept.
Microsoft officially shuttered Skype on May 5, ending the pioneering video chat service's 22-year run. The closure, announced in February, completes Skype's absorption into Microsoft Teams, the company's Slack competitor. Users opening Skype apps will now be redirected to Teams. The only surviving component is the Skype Dial Pad, which remains available within Microsoft Teams Free for subscribers to make calls to traditional phone numbers.

The once-dominant video calling platform was purchased by Microsoft for $8.5 billion in 2011, replacing the company's Windows Live Messenger. Created in 2003 by developers behind Kazaa file-sharing software, Skype became synonymous with video calling during broadband internet's expansion. Skype's decline accelerated after Microsoft's acquisition, with unpopular redesigns and competition from Zoom, which captured market share during the COVID-19 pandemic. Microsoft began phasing out Skype in 2017, starting with Skype for Business, while bundling Teams with Office applications until regulatory intervention forced their separation.
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Microsoft Shuts Down Skype More

Microsoft Shuts Down Skype

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  • Extinguished (Score:5, Informative)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Monday May 05, 2025 @04:21PM (#65354323)

    Mission accomplished.

    • Mission accomplished.

      Skype was extinguished a decade ago. All that has changed today is a name. Teams and Skype are two systems that were fundamentally identical. Nothing was extinguished today other than a logo.

  • All that's left (Score:5, Funny)

    by Scutter ( 18425 ) on Monday May 05, 2025 @04:26PM (#65354337) Journal

    All we have now is Teams, New Teams, Teams (New) , Teams Home, Teams for Business, New Teams for Business, New Home Teams for Home and Business (New), and New Teams (Home Business Edition).

  • Well, it was very confusing. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Random361 ( 6742804 ) on Monday May 05, 2025 @04:27PM (#65354343)

    Well, it was so very confusing having to decide between "Skype" and "Teams." Now I just have to decide between "Microsoft Teams (for work)," "Microsoft Teams (Personal)," "Microsoft Teams (new)," "Microsoft Teams (old version)," "Microsoft Teams (for work and school)," and the soon to be popular "Microsoft Teams (Go fuck yourself.)"

    • Re:Well, it was very confusing. (Score:4, Funny)

      by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Monday May 05, 2025 @04:35PM (#65354371)

      Well, it was so very confusing having to decide between "Skype" and "Teams." Now I just have to decide between "Microsoft Teams (for work)," "Microsoft Teams (Personal)," "Microsoft Teams (new)," "Microsoft Teams (old version)," "Microsoft Teams (for work and school)," and the soon to be popular "Microsoft Teams (Go fuck yourself.)"

      You forgot, Microsoft Teams (Go fuck yourself) (New Version).

      • MS is really good at adding suck to their products as a feature. Let's keep polishing the turd with a new UI, make it harder to use, keep is as a minimal viable product, and rebrand it. Maybe Microsoft can fix some of the legacy problems; i dont know, maybe start with search within windows not working? They should do what grepwin does.

        • Micro$hit is the company that never even figured out how to give a proper error message. Inevitably, you get some nonsense like the ubiquitous error 0x800700c1. Go search for it, even clicking on the help link if it's offered, and you get nothing but stupid responses like "reboot your PC," "reinstall {everything}," "run sfc /scannow"... They actually redefine the term "enshittify" by becoming a reverse King Midas: Everything they touch inevitably goes to shit.

        • I love it when people who never touch this stuff start shooting their mouths off it makes it simple to find the real blowhards to ignore later
      • Are you sure it's not Microsoft Teams (Go duck yourself) (backdoor edition)....? It is Microsoft, after all.(Yeah, there's a funky spelling autocorrect that I've left in.)

        • Are you sure it's not Microsoft Teams (Go duck yourself) (backdoor edition)....? It is Microsoft, after all.(Yeah, there's a funky spelling autocorrect that I've left in.)

          It would be just like Copilot to 'correct' the official name in such a way too.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pascoea ( 968200 )

      "Microsoft Teams (Go fuck yourself.)

      You repeat yourself.

  • What was the valuable thing about it besides the people that were using it? Wasn't it just built on open protocols that anyone of us could just simply build a clone of quickly?

    What's stopping somebody from building the next Skype and actually doing it right?

  • Make it open source so we can make our own servers.

  • I just got an email 2 days ago that my Skype credit ($3.21) would expire in 10 days. I have got these regularly over the years when I hadnâ(TM)t used Skype for a while. Used to save quite a few dollars on calls home from overseas back in the day. Câ(TM)est la vie, say the old folks ðYZ

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by v1 ( 525388 )

      it's now against federal law to pull that crap. It's basically a "gift card". Several years ago the feds got involved with all the gift card places charging "inactivity fees" and "expiring" people's credit. The feds realized that gift cards were paid up front in cash, and that taxes were only getting collected when the money was SPENT. So the money companies were taking from customers via the fees and expirations were "pre-tax". And NOTHING gets the govt panties in a twist like cheating on your taxes.

      S

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by v1 ( 525388 )

      followup: It looks like they're not going to refund OR try to steal the money, they're just going to move it: "After May 5th, you can use your credit within the Skype web portal or in Microsoft Teams using the Skype dial pad. "

      Though I have no idea what I can USE it for. Something in there must be pay-to-play.

  • This technology was pretty fucking impressive in 2002. I feel like in some alternate reality, people stop giving phone numbers and give each other skype addresses and that's what we 'd still all be doing. Way back in the day when I traveled a lot internationally for business, I had a phone line that forwarded to my skype account, and then I'd have my skype forward to my international phone # for like 2 cents a minute. Cool stuff.

    • That's probably the main reason for its downfall. With other messaging apps that use your phone number as an ID, you don't have to share anything. All your contacts are already there.

      With Skype you have to share IDs that can be misspelled/misunderstood or lost as you need some app or an actual piece of paper to write them down. With a phone number you just add it to your contact list. Boom, done.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ksevio ( 865461 )

      It was impressive! It was a mostly decentralized communications app where calls were routed over clients that were promoted to supernodes meaning it didn't have a huge bandwidth, but then weirdly eBay bought it and it didn't really fit into eBay's business model so it languished for a while to a time where that technology didn't really work and wasn't needed

  • Skype was never bought by microsoft. They allowed routing of calls that didnt accept wiretapping and when the government complained that it wanted to wiretap it, the second they didnt agree to comply POOF microsoft bought them and IMMEDIATELY removed the decentralized call routing.

    So get it right. The government bought skype and handed it to microsoft so they could toe that line.

    No different than the CCP buying a company.

  • meanwhile, teams has the full fat android app.

    My poor phone from 2015 will struggle. lucky for me, by the end of june, I'll get a new one.

  • There really isn't anything to say beyond the title.

    Maybe don't let the Empty Trash button hit you on the way out?

  • Used Skype a lot, right from the start. Happy with it. Then MS bought it...and I promptly uninstalled it. I knew they were going to screw it up.
  • The interesting thing is, Linux aside, no one has commercially challenged Microsoft for a boxed software product to run on PC compatibles, in years.

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