Saturday, March 01, 2025

Skype Is Shutting Down at Microsoft

It's the end of an era. Skype, the video calling platform that revolutionized online communication across the world after its 2003 launch, will soon ring its final bubbly dial tone, Microsoft has announced.

More

Skype is logging off.

[image or embed]

-- CNBC (@cnbc.com) February 28, 2025 at 12:32 PM

Comments

Yup.

I just un-installed the Skype app from my computers.

No need to carry around that app if Microsoft is now pushing users to an app that may collect even more data about hose who use it.


Asked differently, how private are your conversation on Teams compared to those conversations on Skype?


#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-02-28 07:38 PM

Asked differently, how private are your conversation on Teams compared to those conversations on Skype?

Don't know about Team ...

But I uninstalled Skype from my systems around 2008.

NSA has had backdoor access and could eavesdrop on video calls since then.

#2 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-03-02 12:33 PM

It was cool in its day but has been surpassed by better options and is now obsolete.

#3 | Posted by BellRinger at 2025-03-03 12:28 AM

@#3 ... has been surpassed by better options ...

yup.

Zoom was the demise of Skype.

Teams? Not so much.

And that is Microsoft's problem.

#4 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-03-03 12:37 AM

Wasn't Skype just a rebrand of MSN Messenger? Or am I not remembering?

#5 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-03-03 12:39 AM

"Teams? Not so much."

I never warmed to Teams

#6 | Posted by BellRinger at 2025-03-03 12:42 AM

@#5 ... Wasn't Skype just a rebrand of MSN Messenger? ...

My view was that MSN Messenger was text-only, while Skype added video.

But, I'm only about 60% confident in that opinion.

Here's more ...

MSN Messenger
en.wikipedia.org

... MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as MSN[2][3]), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft.[4] It connected to the now-discontinued Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versions, was compatible with Yahoo! Messenger and Facebook Messenger. The service was discontinued in 2013 and was replaced by Skype.

The client was first released as MSN Messenger Service on July 22, 1999, and was marketed under the MSN brand until 2005, when it was rebranded under the Windows Live name. It has since been officially known by the latter name, although its first name remained in common use.[5][6] In June 2009, Microsoft reported the service attracted over 330 million active users each month, placing it among the most widely used instant-messaging clients in the world.[7]

Following its acquisition of Skype Technologies in May 2011, Microsoft added interoperability between Skype and Microsoft accounts, allowing Skype"which had features unique to its platform and a wider user base"to communicate with Windows Live Messenger contacts. In 2013, the product was discontinued, and Microsoft began cutting service to existing clients. It remained active in China for another 18 months and ceased operations there on October 31, 2014. ...


#7 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-03-03 12:46 AM

@#6 ... I never warmed to Teams ...

Yeah, and that is the challenge Microsoft seems to be facing.


Zoom, not Teams.

When I was asked to participate remotely in a friend's birthday party for their child, I was not given a Teams link to click on, but a Zoom link.


Like Microsoft's battle of its Zune vs Apple' iPod, how will this one end?


Phrasing that differently, who else here remembers Microsoft's Zune?


#8 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-03-03 12:52 AM

#5

No. Micro$loth bought Skype, it already existed before they ruined it.

#9 | Posted by DarkVader at 2025-03-03 10:18 AM

It must be nice to so easily absorb a $8.5 billion dollar mistake.

#10 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-03-03 12:47 PM

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