Skype enters history | Microsoft announces service will cease on May 5, urging users to switch to Teams
Microsoft announced that it will cease Skype services on May 5, ending its 20 years of operation and shifting its focus to Teams. Skype was founded in 2003 and once had hundreds of millions of users, but gradually declined due to technological limitations and the rise of competitors. Microsoft promises that Skype users can smoothly transition to Teams, ensuring that chat history and contacts are automatically transferred. The closure of Skype marks the exit of another classic product from Microsoft
The messaging software Skype will go down in history. Reuters
Microsoft announced on Friday (28th) that its instant messaging software Skype will officially cease operations on May 5, ending over 20 years of service. Microsoft stated that this decision is to shift focus to Teams and simplify its communication product line.
Disrupted Global Communication with Hundreds of Millions of Users
Skype was founded in 2003 and disrupted the traditional telephone industry with its video and internet calling technology, reaching hundreds of millions of users at its peak. However, with the rise of competitors like Zoom and Slack, Skype gradually declined due to technological limitations and a lagging user experience, failing to adapt to the smartphone era.
During the pandemic, Microsoft strengthened the development of Teams, integrating it into the Office suite to attract enterprise users and further replace Skype. Microsoft promised that Skype users could directly log into Teams, and chat histories and contacts would be automatically migrated, ensuring a smooth transition.
Skype was an important strategic acquisition for Microsoft, which successfully purchased Skype for $8.5 billion (approximately HKD 66.1 billion) in 2011, beating Google and Facebook, with around 150 million users at that time. However, by 2020, active users had dropped to 23 million, and even though the pandemic brought a brief resurgence, it was still difficult to reverse the decline.
Microsoft emphasized that the closure of Skype would not affect employee jobs, and Teams currently has 320 million monthly active users. The curtain call for Skype also marks another classic product officially exiting the historical stage, following Internet Explorer and Windows Phone
