Microsoft to shut down Skype to focus on Teams

Skype’s rise in the early 2000s was driven by its ability to offer a simple way to connect with friends and family, eliminating the costs of long distance calls. Ebay sensed the potential and acquired it in 2005 for 2.6 billion dollars. However, the operation did not have the desired fruits, and a few years later, a group of investors led by Silver Lake hired control. Subsequently, Microsoft intervened with a considerable offer, with the intention of making Skype the fulcrum of his communication strategy. This plan, however, has never fully materialized. Despite Microsoft’s attempts to promote Skype in various ways – including it in Windows, integrating it into Outlook and, subsequently, adding artificial intelligence tools such as Bing Chat – the service has never achieved the successful success.

Skype’s main problem was the growing competition. In the period in which Microsoft tried to define a strategy for the service, new actors had already conquered the market. During the pandemic, Zoom was established as the reference platform for video calls, while WhatsApp simplified group chats and Slack redefined the company messaging. Even Teams, a product from Microsoft herself, proved to be a more solid alternative. As pointed out by Jim Gaynor, vice-president of research at the Directions On Microsoft consultancy firm, in an interview with CNBC, Skype is still perceived mainly as a one-a-one communication tool. This feature represents a limit in a context in which most users need tools designed for group conversations.

The numbers relating to Skype users confirm this trend. Microsoft had reported 40 million daily users at the beginning of 2020, a number which then fell to 36 million. Meanwhile, Teams has recorded significant growth, going from 250 million monthly users in 2021 to over 300 million. Although Skype will not disappear immediately – a Microsoft spokesman confirmed that he will remain available for those who still use it – the direction undertaken by the company is evident, with Teams that now receives most of the attention. Microsoft may not explicitly define it, but it is difficult to interpret the evolution of Skype in a different way. The application that has contributed to transforming online communication is about to be set aside, replaced by a product that Microsoft has developed later.