Microsoft will probably be retiring its legacy video-conferencing platform Skype right now (Could 5). The appliance, which was intially launched over twenty years in the past in 2003 and later acquired by Microsoft in 2011, supplied Voice over Web Protocol (VoIP)-based video telephony, video-conferencing and voice calling capabilities. The announcement was made in February, with the Redmond-based tech large prioritising Groups app as the principle free shopper communications providing. Microsoft is migrating present Skype customers to its Groups app, permitting them to log in to the free model utilizing their present Skype credentials on any supported gadget.
What’s Subsequent
Based on Microsoft, Skype Credit score, subscriptions, and different paid options will not be supplied to customers. Present paid subscribers can proceed to make use of their Skype Credit and subscriptions till the top of their subsequent renewal interval, whereas Skype Credit can be utilized until exhaustion. Starting right now, Skype Dial Pad will solely be obtainable to remaining paid customers from the Skype net portal and inside Groups.
Microsoft emphasises that the shut down of Skype solely impacts free and paid customers, and never these holding Skype for Enterprise accounts.
Learn how to Transition from Skype to Microsoft Groups:
- Obtain Groups in your gadget from the official Microsoft Groups web site.
- Log in with Skype credentials.
- Begin utilizing Groups with all of the Skype chats and contacts mechanically obtainable from the offset.
With Skype phasing out, present customers will have the ability to log in to the free model of Microsoft Groups utilizing their present credentials on any supported gadget. It’s making the migration course of simpler by mechanically transferring the Skype information, together with chats and contacts to the brand new platform. They may also obtain a notification within the Skype app prompting them to take motion for information migration. Customers have till January 2026 to take action, after which their information will probably be deleted.
Nonetheless, chats between Skype customers and Groups work or college accounts won’t be migrated, the corporate says. Additional, paid Skype options, together with Skype Credit score and subscriptions, will not be supplied to prospects.
Why is Skype Shutting Down
Skype was launched in 2003 and shortly turned one of the crucial fashionable VoIP-based video telephony and video-conferencing platforms on this planet. Its excessive success ultimately led to Microsoft buying the corporate in 2011 for $8.5 billion (roughly Rs. 0.71 lakh crore). Nonetheless with time, different social media platforms like WhatsApp and Zoom emerged, providing considerably extra performance and suppleness. Zoom skilled a surge pushed by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 as Skype fell behind.
Though Microsoft in 2023 revealed that the platform nonetheless had 36 million customers, its market share decreased over time, with the corporate’s personal Groups app rising practically fourfold up to now two years and providing related core options along with many extra.
Thus, the corporate introduced in February that Skype can be retiring on Could 5 (right now).
