Microsoft announces Skype will close in May

Skype, the video-calling work that had hundreds of millions of users, is closing successful May, its proprietor Microsoft has said.

It was erstwhile 1 of the world's astir fashionable websites and allowed radical to marque dependable calls via their computers to friends and household each implicit the globe for free.

Skype was not the archetypal oregon lone institution offering this work but by allowing the nationalist to marque computer-to-computer calls free, it helped popularise the concept.

In an announcement connected X, Skype said users tin motion successful to Microsoft Teams with their relationship to enactment connected with each their chats and contacts.

Microsoft made nary contiguous remark erstwhile contacted by BBC News.

First released successful 2003, Skype was bought by the tech elephantine successful 2011 for $8.5bn (£6.1bn) - its biggest-ever acquisition astatine the time.

As Microsoft erstwhile outlined, Skype became integrated with the company's different products specified arsenic Xbox and Windows devices.

In December 2010, tech manufacture commentator Om Malik called it 1 of the "key applications of the modern web", erstwhile the website suffered a two-day planetary outage.

Following quality of its imminent closure, Skype users past and contiguous described their memories of utilizing the work for video calls and the interaction it had connected their lives.

"My champion person and I stock galore bully memories connected Skype," 1 X idiosyncratic said. "This is simply a bittersweet time and astir a feeling of losing yet different fragment of my adolescence."

Another aboriginal idiosyncratic of Skype called Louise told the BBC she and her spouse utilized the work to chat erstwhile they "embarked connected a transatlantic relationship".

"Skype was specified an breathtaking invention astatine the clip - earlier smartphones and WhatsApp calls," she said.

"It's truthful casual to presume that we've ever been capable to freely speech to radical crossed the satellite but that's specified a caller improvement really."

Anna Simpson, from integer selling steadfast Cedarwood Digital, posted connected LinkedIn that she would video-call her grandparents connected Skype aft they moved to France astir 20 years ago.

"Back then, it felt similar magic," she wrote. "There were nary dodgy planetary telephone charges, conscionable a speedy dial-up and immoderate pixelated faces keeping america connected.

"Skype led the mode for video calls. But present it's officially done. Microsoft is pulling the plug, but honestly... it's been connected beingness enactment for years."

When Microsoft bought Skype, the institution was buying into an app that had been downloaded 1 cardinal times and had hundreds of millions of users.

"Together we volition make the aboriginal of real-time communications," Microsoft main Steve Ballmer said astatine the time.

But arsenic WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger grew successful popularity, Skype was waning.

In 2017, Microsoft redesigned Skype, with immoderate features looking precise overmuch similar rival Snapchat. Users were not happy.

At the time, Rachel Kaser, a newsman astatine The Next Web, said: "People are annoyed by this update to the Skype app due to the fact that it's fixing thing that was ne'er breached to statesman with."

In June 2021, speculation persisted that it was the beginning of the extremity for Skype.

When Microsoft announced Windows 11, its caller operating system, it stated that Microsoft Teams would beryllium integrated by default, portion Skype, for the archetypal clip successful years, was not.

Teams had seen a boost successful popularity during the Covid pandemic arsenic radical moved their enactment and idiosyncratic meetings online.

As the quality of Skype's closure was announced, Microsoft published a blog post from Jeff Teper, the company's president of collaborative apps and platforms.

In it, helium said the institution wants to streamline its escaped services to absorption connected Teams.

"With Teams, users person entree to galore of the aforesaid halfway features they usage successful Skype, specified arsenic one-on-one calls and radical calls, messaging, and record sharing," helium said.

"Additionally, Teams offers enhanced features similar hosting meetings, managing calendars, and gathering and joining communities for free."

Skype users present person a prime – determination implicit to Microsoft Teams oregon export their Skype information including chats, contacts and telephone history, the station added.

For Skype customers who wage for immoderate features, Microsoft said they volition beryllium capable to usage their work up until their adjacent renewal period.