Microsoft hanging on Skype: Service to close May 5, 2025

After starting the market to make online calls 23 years ago, Skype closes. Microsoft, who got the correspondence and communication application 14 years ago, said it would retire from active service on May 5 to double the difference. Skype users have 10 weeks to determine what they want to do with their account.

It is not clear how many people are affected. The latest numbers that Microsoft shared in 2023, when she said she had more than 36 million users – was out of the 300 million Skype peak.

“We know that this is a big deal for Skype users, and we are very grateful for their support for Skype and all the learning that has been taken in the difference during the past seven years,” Jeff TiberThe head of Microsoft 365 Applications and platforms told Techcrunch in an interview this week. “At this point, we will allow us to put all our focus behind the teams to provide a more simplicity and push innovation faster.”

Between now and May 5, users will have the option to deport all their contacts and chat data to Microsoft’s Difference platform. Instead, users can download their Skype data using the applied export tool.

The issue of work

The news will surprise a few for those who have followed Skype in recent years; In many ways, writing was on the wall since 2016, when Microsoft for the first time made a team.

While Microsoft had Skype launched a specific business product In 2015, the teams reached a new direction of Microsoft in the cloud communication space. Many teams likened to reproduce the recession, but the biggest ambition was building a platform that would provide space for cooperation and communication through a wide range of Microsoft and other applications, which included chat, video and text – direct overlap with Skype.

Microsoft then Plans for gradual disposal revealed Skype for Business in 2017, The conclusion of these efforts after four yearsIn 2021. In the same year, Microsoft chose the difference K. Integrated Etisalat app on Windows 11 Operating SystemSkype fell to the side lines.

Quickly forward to December 2024, Techcrunch mentioned That microsoft stopped Allow Skype users to add credit To their accounts, or buy Skype phone numbersPay users to monthly subscriptions and skype-to-show plans instead.

Thus this takes us to today’s news, which indicates the end of the brand and the company that was one of the first emerging companies in the field of major technology that was launched outside Europe in Dawdling Days of Dial-up.

Skype comes after two years Microsoft has started offering it It was completely rebuilt, Desktop and Web. In these two years, Teper says that the consumer minutes in the teams have grown four times, although he refused to specify the number of consumers who make up the base of 320 million users.

“It is widely enough, we feel great towards the app (difference) for personal use,” Tiber said. “We feel that we have miles under our belt on adoption by consumers, (who) using a difference in their personal lives. We thought about (stop Skype) for a period of time, but we really felt that the product had to show the user’s final dependence with consumers telling us that he is ready.”

Microsoft believes that consumers are now ready.

User numbers

While Skype entered in a new era of online connections, starting from VOICE before Expanding to the video Files exchange, smartphones and a set of new messaging applications have affected the number of Skype users over the years. For context, WhatsApp I sail after my billion user In 2020.

When Skype It was submitted for the public subscription in 2010It revealed 560 million registered users and 124 million active users. But instead of the audience in the wake of Ebay cross (Which wasCQUID that in 2005), Microsoft She made an offer worth $ 8.5 billion for Skype in 2011And the platform grown to the peak 300 million users in 2013.

Microsoft is not used to dismantling the numbers of Skype users in subsequent years, although it disturbed the cross data point. At the beginning of the epidemic in March 2020, the company open Skype has grown by 70 % on a month A similar increase in competing platforms Like zooming.

It was the last update presented by Microsoft via A. Blog published in early 2023 Announcing the integration between Skype and its SEARCH Bing engine, as it revealed that “more than 36 million people use Skype daily to call through phone calls and chats” worldwide.

Nevertheless, this long and little growth is that the growth of the difference and the surface of Skype is one of the reasons why Microsoft is now the time to go to the difference.

“Skype took a stumbling block – as the difference did – during the epidemic, and Skype was largely stable in the past two years,” Tiber said. “We felt that time, and comments were so that we could take this step.”

My house

Microsoft encourages users to move Free difference. This provides some additional features that are not available in Skype, such as the integration of the calendar, but the free teams lack the other main features that were special for Skype-specifically, the phone call functions that allowed users to call the numbers of mobile lines and the ground line, in addition to receiving phone calls with the Skype phone number.

Microsoft started Condem for these services in DecemberPreventing users from adding any additional credit to their accounts with a position to stop buying Skype numbers. Users were still able to make calls for phone numbers with a valid monthly subscription or any remaining balance they had, but the subscription renewal will end on April 3.

For old users who are still getting credit in their accounts, Microsoft will provide Skype phone call platform at Skype Web and in the difference for an unlimited period.

“We will support (this) as long as users have credit and use this job”, “Microsoft VP of Product Amit Fulaie He said Techcrunch.

Although the Foundation embodies the teams Submit phone callsFoulele confirmed that the free teams will not support PSTN (Public transferred phone), most of them due to the transformation of consumer trends.

He said: “We have searched the use of phone calls for a period of time on Skype, patterns changed, use changed, and this is a step towards that.” “People have mobile data plans, and when this (phone) job appeared several years ago, this was not the case.”

Regime deportation

During the transition period, Skype users will be able to download the Teams app and log in with their Skype credentials, with all their chats and contacts automatically. The Skype application itself will continue to work alongside, until May 5, 2025.

Instead, users will be able to export their data, although there will actually be all that they will be able to do in terms of import it anywhere else.

“We wanted to make sure that during this transition, people do not lose their contacts, their memories.” We want to make sure that we keep all the things that people have shared. If they choose to come to the difference, we will return all their contacts and data. “

If the user does not take any action by May 5, Skype says he will keep the user’s data until the end of the year, after which it will be deleted.

blurred lines

One of the large fast food of all this is how the lines between business and consumer worlds are not clear, partly due to societal standards about technology and trends such as remote work.

Skype started as a consumer producer spreading in the field of business, while the teams started as a commercial product He was dismissed to the consumer. The difference today, though, is still Feel Like a business product, especially because of his name. Do you see families and friends themselves as part of a large “team”?

Teper, for his part, does not see this as a problem, given that many of its current products already exceed the limits of the state of use.

He said: “I think many people will move (from Skype to the difference).” “If you are thinking about Word, Excel, PowerPoint, these are brands that work for commercial and personal use of people. We have children and parents who do their duty in words, budgets and excellence, so we have a good precedent about our tools used in personal life and working life.”