Microsoft is pulling out plugs for Skype, pioneering internet communications, video calling platforms Almost 14 years ago, $8.5 billion.
“I retired from Skype in May 2025 and focused on Microsoft Teams (free), modern communications and collaboration hubs, and on modern communications and collaboration hubs,” Jeff Teper, president of Co-Apps and Platforms at Washington-based software company, said on Friday.
Microsoft in the second half of 2012 I discarded my own immediate message Tools, Messenger, after purchasing Skype the previous year. But over the next decade, services including FaceTime, Messenger and WhatsApp have connected people in the way that made Skype harder to compete.
The difficulties saw people who saw people swarming on Zoom, especially early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Microsoft launched a consumer team in 2020, and at the time it said it was committed to Skype.
Skype was launched in 2003 by entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, and combines the name “Sky” with reference to peer-to-peer networks, making it an important new way for Dotcom Boom to share online files and data.
The company’s founder first sold Skype to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion. Microsoft Acquisition In May 2011, the largest purchase ever made by a software manufacturer at the time, giving us access to a user base of around 170 million people logged in to Skype every month. That count had transformed into over 300 million users by 2016, but shrunk to 36 million in 2023, Microsoft said.
According to Microsoft, Skype users will be able to access message history, group chats and contacts without having to log in to the Microsoft Teams app and create additional accounts. Users can also export data to another app.
Skype will be available until May 5th, and users will decide which options to get in about two months.
