'Formidable' competitors such as Zoom, Google Meet and Cisco WebEx are causing the once-popular online calling service Skype to be on the verge of extinction.
 |
| Microsoft confirms Skype will be discontinued from May 2025. (Source: CNN) |
Microsoft Corporation (USA) announced on February 28 that it will remove Skype - an Internet video and phone service that was a popular way of communication in the mid-2000s.
Microsoft confirmed on social network X: “As of May 2025, Skype will be gone. In the coming days, you can join Microsoft Teams Free with your Skype account to stay connected to all your conversations and contacts. Thank you for joining Skype.”
Skype was shut down 14 years after Microsoft bought the service for $8.5 billion, the company's largest acquisition at the time. Microsoft then merged Skype with other products like Office and Windows Phone.
In recent years, Skype has gradually fallen out of favor, while a series of competitors have become increasingly popular, such as Zoom, Google Meet and Cisco WebEx, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Over the past 15 years, Skype has faced increasingly fierce competition from rival apps like Apple’s FaceTime and Meta’s WhatsApp. In addition, Microsoft has invested heavily in Teams, which includes many similar features.
Skype launched in Estonia in 2003 and became a popular way to make international phone calls—a remarkably free way to communicate when international calls were expensive on regular phones at the time. The service quickly became popular, prompting eBay to pay $2.6 billion to buy it in 2005.
However, that partnership did not work out and eBay sold a 65% stake in Skype to an investment firm for $1.9 billion in 2009 before Microsoft acquired the service in 2011.
Source
Comment (0)