MICROSOFT has vowed to kill off Skype forever, ending a 22-year run for the legendary chat app.
Skype was a massive hit in the noughties – but eventually faced stiff competition from rivals like Zoom and Google Meet.
3
Now the app is set to be closed down in May, and Microsoft is already warning users to start moving away.
Microsoft has decided that it isn’t worth the time to maintain Skype when it has other options available.
So instead, Microsoft will end support for Skype and focus on its own Teams app instead.
“Starting in May, Skype will no longer be available,” a Microsoft notice explains.
It urges users to “continue your calls and chats in Teams”.
WHEN IS SKYPE SHUTTING DOWN?
The official death date for Skype is May 5, 2025, ending the service after just shy of 22 years.
The app will stop working, but your Skype account won’t be closed immediately.
Instead you’ll be able to sign into Microsoft Teams using your Skype account.
You’ll be able to do that within the next few days.
Once you’re into Microsoft Teams, you should still be able to see your old contacts and chats from Skype.
Alternatively, you can save your old contacts and chats by exporting them from Skype ahead of time.
It’s a major fall from grace for the app, which had 660 million global users at the end of 2010.
By August 2015, there was 300 million active monthly users.
This monthly figure had fallen to 100 million people by March 2020.
3
GOING OFFLINE
The death of Skype shouldn’t come as a major surprise.
Skype’s own blog – which reveals updates to the app – stopped posting in May 2024.
At the time, Skype hailed a “new version of Skype messaging” that offered a “complete revamp that promises to redefine your messaging experience”.
But the blog stopped being updated right after, and Microsoft appeared to have no public future plans for it.
SKYPE – WHERE DID IT GET ITS NAME?
Have you ever wondered what Skype actually means?
Skype is now a household name, but most people never question how the app got its name.
It turns out that Skype is a shortening of the term “Sky peer-to-peer”.
That’s because Skype was an early pioneer of peer-to-peer calling, which meant that users would correct directly to each other – rather than via a server.
This was then shortened to the name Skyper.
Sadly some of the domain names for Skyper had already been snapped up.
So the app’s creators decided to ditch the final “r” in the name – leaving us with Skype.
Picture Credit: Microsoft / Skype
Skype was a popular way for users to send messages, do audio or video calls, and even dial real numbers.
However, Skype faced stiff competition from Zoom and Google Meet – as well as apps like Apple’s FaceTime, and Meta’s Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
Skype was created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, along with a team of four Estonian developers, in the early noughties.
It was released in August 2003, and then acquired for $2.6 billion by eBay in September 2005.
3
A huge chunk of Skype (worth $1.9 billion at the time) was bought up by investors in September 2009 – giving them 65% ownership of the company.
It was only in May 2011 that Skype was snapped up by Microsoft for a whopping $8.5 billion.
This was Microsoft’s way of replacing its own Windows Live Messenger service, which had previously been known as MSN Messenger.
Skype was best-known for its desktop app, but it was available on loads of gadgets, including Mac computers, iPhone and Android devices, Microsoft’s Xbox consoles, and even Apple and Google smartwatches.
SO LONG, SKYPE!
Here’s analysis from The Sun’s tech editor Sean Keach…
I used to be a Skype obsessive.
Well, originally an MSN obsessive, but then I graduated to Skype and never looked back.
I could chat to friends while gaming and video call my mum, all in one app. It was a game-changer.
Hours (and probably entire days) were spent on Skype, chatting away. It felt like the future.
But I’ll be honest: I haven’t thought about Skype in years. Probably a decade.
It’s long been ditched in favour of chat apps like WhatsApp and FaceTime on my phone, and Google Meet or Zoom on the computer. Discord is where I go for shouting about video games these days.
Skype once felt almost like a byword for calling people online – like how Google obviously means search, even if you’re doing it somewhere else. Sorry Bing.
But I think if I said I was going to Skype someone now, I’d get some funny looks.
That’s not a big risk now that Skype is destined for the great app graveyard. I suppose that’s the only upside.
Now all that’s left to do is share some fond memories of the good times on Skype with pals. Over WhatsApp, of course.
It was available in 108 languages, and was being used by 36 million people a day as recently as February 2023.
That was down from 40 million daily users in March 2020.
