Microsoft Discontinues Skype
"As of May 2025, Skype will no longer be available," said the online telephony service Skype on Friday on the online service X (formerly Twitter) and instructed users to sign up for the Microsoft meeting platform Teams.
Online Telephony Service Skype Bought by Microsoft in 2011
The company had purchased the video call pioneer Skype in 2011 for $8.5 billion (around €8.2 billion). In the early 2000s, Skype was considered synonymous with video telephony before the technology became widespread and other services like Zoom entered the market. "We have learned a lot from Skype, (...) while we have continued to develop Teams over the past seven to eight years," said Jeff Teper, President of Microsoft 365, to the broadcaster CNBC. "But we felt that now is the time (...) and we can deliver more innovation faster by focusing on Teams."
Transition from Skype to Teams to Be Seamless
During the transition to Teams, Skype group chats would remain intact, and contacts on Skype could also be reached with messages sent via Teams within a 60-day window, the company explained. However, Microsoft is introducing a major change: Skype's telephony services will be removed, so normal phone or mobile numbers cannot be called, nor can international calls be made. Microsoft explained to the tech portal "The Verge" that these services are no longer as relevant today because mobile data for phones costs less than before.
Founding of Skype in 2003 in Estonia
Skype was founded in 2003 by two Scandinavians in Estonia, initially offering free calls between computers and cheap calls to landlines and mobile phones. Later, Skype developed into a provider of video calls and other services such as data transmission. By 2005, Skype had already registered 50 million users. The online auctioneer Ebay bought Skype at that time for about $2.6 billion, but then sold the majority of the shares in 2009 to an investor group. Microsoft acquired the service from this group. In 2016, Skype had about 300 million users.
(APA/Red)
This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.