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Microsoft is killing Skype

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Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#441

Post by sznio »

bayindirh wrote: post #106
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…

I think Microsoft killed it the moment when they made everything move through central servers before everyone had good network connection, everywhere. It was P2P before. It was slow, laggy and unstable for most of the time. Also, they didn't invest in the transportation codecs much. After it's marred, they didn't try to mend it much, and when it started to work well due to better bandwidth, they didn't push it back a…

Part of it was that performance was abysmal. Everyone jumped to Discord (an electron app!) when it released, because it performed better.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#442

Post by hedgehog »

Scoundreller wrote: post #437
qingcharles wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the better ask is why eBay bought it...

And even when eBay thought they bought it, apparently they didn’t buy all of it: https://www.theregister.com/2009/11/06/ebay_skype/ https://www.hugheshubbard.com/news/the-best-laid-m-a-plans-h...

Oh it gets better. Apparently some of the stuff they didn't get dated back to Kazaa. Some of the Skype founders were under indictment and traveling incognito while they raised money for the new company.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#443

Post by soundnote »

l33tman wrote: post #124
OvbiousError wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everything I do for work uses teams, so I can't say MS missed any boats. It's spectacular how pervasive teams is given how universally reviled it is. I'd personally switch back to slack in a heartbeat for instance.

Don't know about Slack's videoconf, but Slack's cheap insistence that we pay a rip-off amount of money per month for storing some TEXT messages more than 90 days has continuously degraded my appreciation for it over the last years to the level of me hating it now. They're so cheap. Just put a quota on total storage or something, that actually map to their costs.. We have a Slack for a shared office of 10 people or so…

Yeah, I just checked to reply to another commenter, and Slack's just expensive:

Slack Pro's 8€/mo/user

Teams Essentials is 4€/user/mo

M365 Business Basic is 6€/user/mo

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#444

Post by quitit »

Microsoft has sent out this email:

Dear Skype user,

In order to streamline our consumer communications offerings, we will be retiring Skype in May 2025. As part of this change, we want to keep you informed about important updates to your Skype paid services and how these changes may affect you. Please read on for detailed information about the updates and what they mean for your services. Subscriptions & Automatic Top-Ups: Existing subscriptions will continue to automatically renew until April 3, 2025. After this, all subscriptions will be retired and no longer be available for purchase, renewal, or reactivation. Automatic top-ups will end on April 3, 2025.

Skype Number: Your Skype Number subscription will continue to automatically renew until April 3, 2025 and will remain active until the end of your next renewal period. To port your Skype Number, please contact your new provider directly. Learn more

Skype Manager: Skype Manager users can purchase and renew paid products, including automatic credit top-ups, until April 3, 2025. After this date, only existing credit balances can be allocated to group members for calling.

For SMS services: SMS services will be discontinued on May 5, 2025.

Skype Dial Pad: After May 5, 2025, the Skype Dial Pad will be available to remaining paid users from the Skype web portal and Teams, where you will continue to be able to use your subscription or Skype Credits.

Terms of Use: Skype paid products are subject to the Microsoft Services Agreement.

Thank you for being part of Skype

We want to express our deepest gratitude for your support over the years. Skype has been an integral part of countless meaningful moments, and we are honored to have been part of your journey. Learn more about Skype retirement here.

With gratitude, The Skype Team

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#445

Post by grishka »

nielssp wrote: post #228
machomaster wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This approach to technology has serious problems. I would send a message to someone and turned off my computer, thinking that the message would be sent whenever the recipient was online. However, that was not the case. The message only arrived when we were online at the same time. Therefore, Skype is completely useless as a tool for asynchronous communication, for the main type of messaging!

I'm pretty sure that's how most, if not all, instant messaging services worked 20 years ago... Was a feature, not a bug. The whole idea of sending an instant message. If you wanted to send a non-instant message, you'd send an email instead.

ICQ worked more like SMS. You could send a message to someone who's offline. It would get stored on the server and delivered when they come online.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#446

Post by rchaud »

high_na_euv wrote: post #148
kleiba wrote: post #130

Teams is a heavyweight behemoth with awful UX while Skype orginally had a very lightweight feel to it. Of course, Microsoft had to kill that through various UI "improvements". Also, Skype has an official Linux client. Instead of developing Teams (NIH at its best), they could have carefully developed Skype into a similar platform. But I'm not sure a giant like Microsoft is capable of something like this. But at least…

>NIH at its best How do you know? Teams feel totally different from Skype, from design perspective

the design is a re-skin of Skype for Business. The app is way more bloated now, so there is an additional pane of options for things like team-only chats, task tracking etc

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#447

Post by pests »

hedgehog wrote: post #442
Scoundreller wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even when eBay thought they bought it, apparently they didn’t buy all of it: https://www.theregister.com/2009/11/06/ebay_skype/ https://www.hugheshubbard.com/news/the-best-laid-m-a-plans-h...

Oh it gets better. Apparently some of the stuff they didn't get dated back to Kazaa. Some of the Skype founders were under indictment and traveling incognito while they raised money for the new company.

I had interacted with Pritt Kasesalu (PrittK) when I was very young. In the late 90/early 00s I played an MMO developed by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) named Subspace, released in the mid 90s. It was a top down astroids-like space game with maps of up to 100 or more players, even back then.

The game shut down officially but the server leaked and became community ran. The original client was not very secure so hacking and cheating became common.

Out of nowhere comes Continuum, a ground up reimplementation of the Subspace client by none other than PrittK, completely eliminating any cheats but changing nothing of gameplay or UI.

He went on to co-own the largest server, Trench Wars, with another player named Dock. There he did custom game bots and other chat-tools. There were rumors that he was involved with Kazaa back then and later on I find out he goes on to be involved with Skype and Joost.

Continuum continued to grow and thrive. The backend server was eventually reimplemented into A Small Subspace Server (ASSS) so now this game was a complete user recreation of the original.

Well, minus the graphics which was in limbo from some sale to a third party company but they never had complaints. Then a few years ago we grt the game green lit on steam.

Little trek down memory lane.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubSpace_(video_game)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2530450/Continuum/

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#450

Post by sznio »

jdlyga wrote: post #386

Every time I'm forced to use Teams it's a chore. I was trying to find a way to set a virtual background or change camera settings, and it looks like it's only available right before you join a meeting. It's wild.

>I was trying to find a way to set a virtual background or change camera settings, and it looks like it's only available right before you join a meeting.

Huh. I used Teams in 2020-2023 and back then you'd just hover over the enable/disable camera button and the settings would show up.

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