Microsoft to Retire Skype, Ending Era of Internet Calling
Microsoft is ending its support for Skype, the pioneering online voice and video call service, with the service scheduled to be fully retired starting May 2025. The company announced the decision on Friday, directing users towards Microsoft Teams for future communication needs.
Skype began as a way to offer free voice calls between computers and provided affordable rates for calls to landlines and mobile phones.
Skype was founded in Estonia in 2003 by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, quickly revolutionizing internet communication by offering free voice calls between computers and affordable rates for calls to landlines and mobile phones. With the improvement of internet speeds, Skype evolved to include video calls, instant messaging, file sharing, and group communication features.
By 2005, Skype had already reached 50 million registered users, marking its rapid global adoption. eBay acquired Skype in 2005 for around $2.6 billion, though the expected synergies never materialized. In 2009, eBay sold a majority stake to a group of investors, who then sold it to Microsoft.
In recent years, particularly following the rise of smartphones, Skype struggled to maintain its position against competitors such as Meta’s WhatsApp and Zoom, as well as Microsoft’s own Teams. Jeff Teper, president of Microsoft 365 collaborative apps and platforms, told CNBC, “We’ve learned a lot from Skype… as we’ve evolved Teams over the last seven to eight years. But we felt like now is the time because we can be simpler for the market, for our customer base, and we can deliver more innovation faster just by being focused on Teams.”
Microsoft stated Skype group chats will be preserved during the transition to Teams. During a 60-day window, messages on both Microsoft and Teams will be interoperable, enabling users to message contacts from Teams, with those messages delivered to friends still using Skype.
A significant change accompanying the retirement is the removal of Skype’s telephony features, meaning users will no longer be able to call regular phone numbers, cell phones, or make international calls through the service. Microsoft told The Verge that these features are considered less relevant in today’s communication landscape due to the decreased cost of mobile data plans.
The name “Skype” originated from “Sky peer-to-peer,” a nod to the technology that facilitated the company’s architecture. The peer-to-peer approach was fundamental, distributing the network demand across users’ computers instead of relying solely on centralized servers. This innovation was crucial in enabling Skype to scale effectively during its early years.
