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Microsoft is killing Skype

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Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#471

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

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…

Teams (which includes the guts of Lync... aka Skype For Business) has grown into Microsoft's behemoth (320 million active daily users while Zoom only has 200k business customers and actually declined YoY).

If you are talking non-business free users then sure, Zoom comes out on top.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#472

Post by chimeracoder »

thwarted wrote: post #330
dadoum wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know for other European countries, but at least I can say that it is not true in France. "Coke" is reserved for cocaine, and cola is the generic word for Coca-Cola-like beverages.

I've heard that the French are strict about language, but what does "reserved" mean here? What do the French call coke¹? ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coke_(fuel) ?

> I've heard that the French are strict about language, but what does "reserved" mean here? What do the French call coke¹?

That's also called "coke", which is why there's a Tintin book called "Coke en Stock". [0]

That said, if you say "coke" in English, almost nobody will think of fuel, and the same is true for French speakers today.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Aventures-Tintin-Stock-French-Sharks/...

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#473

Post by Spivak »

Lammy wrote: post #412
bayindirh wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is built on completely different ethos and evolved from there. (I think it was Paul Allen is who said it) "Microsoft is a corporation built upon the idea of intellectual property ". So being closed source, aggressive safeguarding of IP and locking users in is the DNA of Microsoft. Yes, company is made of people, but there's also a foundational DNA. When you keep that DNA alive, the company changes and eats…

> "Microsoft is a corporation built upon the idea of intellectual property ". Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists

I mean time has proven over and over that Gates and Microsoft were right.

If your business is developing and selling software to businesses then you want a proprietary license and usually to give it away for non-commercial use. If your business is selling direct to consumer then you need a proprietary license, no source available, and probably DRM.

If your business is something unrelated to software, and uses software as a means rather than an end then OSS is your friend.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#474

Post by mihaaly »

They bought it to murder anyway. Consciously or cluelessly, does not matter to me. It was so sad seeing it becoming that useless piece of junk not resembling the Skype grew to be the centerpiece and workhorse of my communications, business and personal alike in its prime time. I was mad about this incompetent giant ruining it little by little, sometimes with a big hit to its stomach. RIP Skype, years and years ago. Only nostalgy left it on my desktop, and two (one plus one) rare contacts. Everything dies, then rots away slowly, it was painful to see that for Skype it happened not in this order.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#475

Post by Lammy »

pests wrote: post #447
hedgehog wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hack…

Amusingly KaZaA itself was one of my first experiences using an “alternative” client for something. There was KaZaA Lite which removed the bundled Cydoor malware, K++ which added hax features like unlimited searches and forced 1000 node reputation, and the most famous KaZaA Lite K++ which did both. Lots of others too like “KL Extensions”, K-Sig, K-Dat, but those were the two big ones.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#476

Post by mihaaly »

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…

I think they killed it by making it unusable through forcing dubious UI/UX/design-principle/other-bs trends for no compelling reason at all on a perfectly good interface.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#477

Post by vinni2 »

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…

My parents and grandparents are non techies and don’t have a lot of experience but they can make whatsapp calls easily. It takes bit of getting used to though.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#478

Post by homebrewer »

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…

Try RustDesk instead of a bunch of proprietary alternatives suggested by other posters. It uses H.264/H.265/VP9 depending on your hardware and network, and is very fast. It also lets you set up your own server, leaking no information to third parties, but that's optional.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#479

Post by homebrewer »

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…

Telegram does that and also has a native (as in C++/Qt) desktop client, unlike almost every other messenger.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#480

Post by bigpeopleareold »

My wife and I still use Skype, primarily for chat, but sometimes video calls. I had Skype Credits, but I don't really need that anymore. The service has definitely degraded (like it couldn't deliver text in a timely manner frequently), but we never switched because despite its faults, it was comfortable enough. No way in hell I am going to use that garbage Teams. I am stuck using it at work and loathe it. This motivates to find a Free Software alternative to this.
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