Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand
bloomberg.com
Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand
1–10 of 436 posts
Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand
#2In a sense it's amazing how such a good product turned to such a mess. It really took a lot of work and engineering to destroy a software to this point.
Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand
#3Skype would have been destroyed at this point by Google and Apple and Facebook. Platform integration always wins over early movers once the giants catch up technologically.
The real story is that MS wildly overpaid for a brand that they couldn't leverage and that they didn't need to target the corporate market where "Skype" (which isn't actually Skype, just rebranded MS code!) is doing well.
Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand
#4Um.. I'm not sure the article author is familiar with the fact that "Skype for business" (the "complex" one) is actually home grown and was just rebranded from Lync. This is not at all the same as the consumer Skype, which actually tries to be a weird mixup between Snapchat and whatnot at the moment (failing utterly of course). Skype for Business (+ PSTN calling) is actually pretty great on Office 365 tbh...
Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand
#5"Since acquiring Skype from private equity investors, Microsoft has refocused the online calling service on the corporate market, a change that has made Skype less intuitive and harder to use ..."
This is absolutely not the bulk of the problem: simply put, the call quality is horrendous and dropping calls in the middle of the meeting is quite common. Modus operandi in most Skype conference calls in our company is to spend the first 4-5 minutes in handshaking ("can you hear me") and troubleshooting problems.
Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand
#6Am I the only one who thought pre-Microsoft skype was a poorly-functioning product?
Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand
#7Is this not Microsoft business model? Purchasing a service, pump it for money and run it to the ground? See MSN, Hotmail, Skype, Minecraft - and LinkedIn is next (who truly think LinkedIn is better after MS got involved?). Perhaps Xbox is their only success.
Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand
#8Skype would have been destroyed at this point by Google and Apple and Facebook. Platform integration always wins over early movers once the giants catch up technologically. The real story is that MS wildly overpaid for a brand that they couldn't leverage and that they didn't need to target the corporate market where "Skype" (which isn't actually Skype, just rebranded MS code!) is doing well.
Doing well in the sense that it's currently being deployed, but not doing well as in performing well, so any startups who want to tackle enterprise chat integrated with AD/Outlook have a low bar to overcome at this point.
Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand
#9Um.. I'm not sure the article author is familiar with the fact that "Skype for business" (the "complex" one) is actually home grown and was just rebranded from Lync. This is not at all the same as the consumer Skype, which actually tries to be a weird mixup between Snapchat and whatnot at the moment (failing utterly of course). Skype for Business (+ PSTN calling) is actually pretty great on Office 365 tbh...
Unless you're not using Windows, in which case it functionally doesn't exist. Seriously. I have never successfully connected a single call with it.
(Understood that the same criticism can be levelled at Facetime etc -- which I also don't use.)
Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand
#10The problem with Skype is the software is terrible. Connection issues, even strange things like working audio and video but only some attendees being able to see screen sharing. Somehow it still has devotees even though far superior products like Zoom, Slack, and even Hangouts exist.