When Microsoft bought Skype in 2011 for $8.5bn after outbidding Google and Facebook, its largest deal at the time, the service had around 150 million monthly users; by 2020, that number had fallen to roughly 23 million, despite a brief resurgence during the pandemic.
When the pandemic and work from home fueled the need for online business calls, Microsoft batted for Teams by aggressively integrating it with other Office apps to tap corporate users, once a major base for Skype.
Over the years, Microsoft struggled to integrate Skype into its suite of tools and could not meet the moment when the company began seeing competition from Apple’s FaceTime and Google’s various communications app attempts.
Shutting down Skype will help Microsoft focus on its homegrown Teams service by simplifying its communication offerings, the office software giant said on Friday.
Founded in 2003, Skype quickly disrupted the landline industry in the early 2000s with its audio and video calls, making the company a household name boasting hundreds of millions of users at its peak.
