After more than 20 years, Microsoft is finally shutting down Skype, the video calling app that once dominated the market and even became a generic term for video calls. The company, which acquired Skype, saw its popularity wane as newer services like WhatsApp, Apple’s iMessage, and work-focused apps such as Zoom emerged.
Microsoft has announced that it will discontinue the service, offering users the option to export their data or migrate it to Microsoft Teams, a platform offering similar chat and calling features. To facilitate the transition, Microsoft will provide a migration service to transfer existing data. However, Teams will not support calling traditional phone numbers, a core feature of Skype in its early days.
Skype is scheduled to remain online until May 5th, providing approximately 60 days for users to decide on their data and migration options. Founded in 2003, Skype’s audio and video calls quickly transformed the telecommunications landscape, becoming a household name with hundreds of millions of users at its peak.
However, the platform has struggled to compete with user-friendly and reliable rivals such as Zoom and Salesforce’s Slack in recent years. This decline was partly attributed to Skype’s underlying technology not fully adapting to the smartphone era. When the pandemic and the rise of remote work drove the need for online business calls, Microsoft aggressively promoted Teams by integrating it with other Office apps to tap corporate users, once a major user base for Skype.
To ease the transition, Microsoft will offer users free access to Teams on any supported device using their existing credentials, with chats and contacts migrating automatically. With this move, Skype joins a series of Microsoft ventures that haven’t met expectations, including the Internet Explorer web browser and Windows Phone. Google has also struggled with its online communication tools, with multiple attempts through apps like Hangouts and Duo.
Microsoft declined to share current user figures for Skype but stated job cuts were not planned as a result of the shutdown. Currently, Teams has about 320 million monthly active users.
In 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion, their largest deal at the time, after outbidding Google and Facebook. At the time, Skype had approximately 150 million monthly users, a number that dropped to around 23 million by 2020, despite a brief resurgence during the pandemic.
On Friday, Microsoft stated, “Skype has been an integral part of shaping modern communications.” Microsoft added, “We are honored to have been part of the journey.”
