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Microsoft is killing Skype

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Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#351

Post by randerson »

drooopy wrote: post #101

The way Microsoft and Skype missed their opportunity during the pandemic to maintain or even expand their lead in video conferencing, while allowing a complete unknown (outside of the corporate world, at least) like Zoom to become the dominant platform, should be studied in business schools. The term 'Skype' is so synonymous with video calling that, based on personal experience, it is still used in place of FaceTime…

Skype should be a textbook case of how a product team will keep inventing new projects to justify their continued employment, even if it means messing with a winning formula.

Skype achieved perfection a year or two after the Microsoft acquisition. At that point they should have downsized the team and focused on maintenance. Instead, they kept releasing new versions, each new version being worse than the previous one.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#352

Post by esafak »

zero_shift wrote: post #332
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Joel on Software blog post is now 25 years old, https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... , but when it first came out it was widely viewed as gospel. I'm generally a big fan of Joel Spolsky, but in retrospect, I think this advice is just wrong, and I think Skype is a perfect counterpoint. That is, sometimes a rewrite is a horrible idea, but at the same time sometimes not doing a rewrite is…

Sometimes the technology "background" changes so much that the codebase you have just becomes irrelevant. We live in a world with WebRTC, embedded agents and digital telephony. The platforms, OSes, infrastructure are so different from how they were in 2009. Does having your own, 500 kloc C++ real time video chat stack make sense any more? What I don't get is how MS couldn't use the Teams stack to power Skype as a con…

So the answer can change over time. You have to periodically re-assess the benefits of a rewrite.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#354

Post by tombert »

geocar wrote: post #347
tombert wrote: post #312

Damn, this is the primary way I talk to my parents and my grandmother. Genuine question, what do people here recommend as a replacement for non-technical people? I'll need to walk my grandmother through the process of setting something remotely. No one in my family but me has iPhones, so I think Facetime is out, and I'd need something that can run on a computer. I suppose I'll have to talk my parents into installing…

> No one in my family but me has iPhones, so I think Facetime is out, So FaceTime lets you make a link that you can give to someone with a web browser and they can use it to reach you, and it works pretty well. You might just try it. > I suppose I'll have to talk my parents into installing Signal desktop, but I was kind of hoping for something that gave you the "user is online" status thing like Skype does. That's pr…

I was looking into it, and it looks like there's a free version of Teams. I think that might be the easiest to get them to onboard to simply I suspect it'll be easier to talk them into something with the "Microsoft" branding.

I hadn't really thought about scams. I'll keep that in mind.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#355

Post by tombert »

paulddraper wrote: post #346
tombert wrote: post #312

Damn, this is the primary way I talk to my parents and my grandmother. Genuine question, what do people here recommend as a replacement for non-technical people? I'll need to walk my grandmother through the process of setting something remotely. No one in my family but me has iPhones, so I think Facetime is out, and I'd need something that can run on a computer. I suppose I'll have to talk my parents into installing…

If your grandmother happens to have a Google account already, Google Hangouts. [1] Wouldn't need to set up anything. And works as reliably as anything I've seen. EDIT: Signal is a very HN recommendation for drop dead simplicity. Syncing keys? [1] https://hangouts.google.com

Actually I just realized my grandmother doesn't have a smartphone of any kind, so I think Signal is out regardless.

I might see if I can just migrate her to the free Teams service from MS. It hurts me a little as an annoying Linux guy but I think this would be the easiest option.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#356

Post by wholinator2 »

high_na_euv wrote: post #138
drooopy wrote: post #101

The way Microsoft and Skype missed their opportunity during the pandemic to maintain or even expand their lead in video conferencing, while allowing a complete unknown (outside of the corporate world, at least) like Zoom to become the dominant platform, should be studied in business schools. The term 'Skype' is so synonymous with video calling that, based on personal experience, it is still used in place of FaceTime…

Missed? They grew Teams, lol. Zoom - wtf, who the hell uses it after. Discord would be better example since it is huge, even LLVM community uses it

I have literally never once used teams officially in any degree. Every call i made before i graduated high school was skype, every school and graduate and job call I've ever made has been zoom.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#357

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

falcor84 wrote: post #244
Timpy wrote: post #240

Back in the Windows 7 days I installed Skype on my parents computer before moving abroad, their user experience was basically like receiving a phone call. Even though they weren't tech savvy we never had any issues. I would call them, and if they were home and near the computer, they could answer it and we'd be video chatting. A year or so ago I found this to be impossible, there was no application for desktop that w…

On a related note, a bit over a decade ago I had installed logmein on my parents' computer to be able to easily help them with any IT issues. But they since pivoted away from personal accounts and I never found anything else as straightforward. I feel that in a lot of ways tech has regressed. EDIT: I just found that logmein actually offer a personal product again, named GoToMyPC, but what used to be entirely free at…

I use TeamViewer for remote support

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#358

Post by btown »

This reminds me of how Yahoo Messenger was silently a significant part of the oil trade, and its shutdown may have subtly made the industry more opaque: https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/oil-traders-prepa...

I have no doubt that we'll see stories about niche industries still built on the backs of Skype that are scrambling to adapt. Nowadays, I suppose it's likely a rounding error compared to other ways that geopolitical forces are disrupting various industries... but we should all be aware of the implicit commitment we make to users when releasing any B2C service, and how people will build entire livelihoods around the simplest of services in ways we can't anticipate.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#359

Post by wholinator2 »

yardie wrote: post #216
fh973 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany, MS was very successful though to get organizations on Teams during the pandemic. Zoom is not a thing. Sure, it's nice to brand the verb, but when the product behind it is EOL, why bother.

Zoom was popular with at home schoolkids. Because to use Teams you had to have a Microsoft acccount first. Zoom was a link, a meeting ID, and password. Sometimes just a link.

I've actually never had to put a password in to any zoom call. It was always just the link. Only when calling from a phone did i have to put even the meeting ID in

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#360

Post by doublepg23 »

linwangg wrote: post #284

I still use Skype, mainly out of habit, but I guess it's finally time to move on. Telegram seems like the best alternative for me, but I wonder—what are others switching to? Feels like every few years, we have to migrate to a new chat platform.

I find telegram is amazing for meeting people you don’t already know, especially in group chats or for having slightly more anonymity.

Signal is great if you already know everyone you’re talking with and don’t really care for large group chats (100s of anonymous strangers).

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