Last Monday, May 5, 2025, marked the final closure of an app that, for more than two decades, became synonymous with long-distance communication: SkypeMicrosoft, the technology giant behind this pioneering platform, announced its decision last February, bringing to an end an era that transformed the way people connected online.
Since its launch on August 29, 2003, in Tallinn, Estonia, Skype burst onto the digital scene, offering an innovative way to make voice and video calls over the Internet. Its popularity skyrocketed in the early 2000s thanks to its revolutionary feature that allowed users to communicate nationally and internationally without incurring traditional telephone company charges. This feature democratized communication, bridging distances and facilitating contact between friends, family, and colleagues around the world.
Skype's trajectory took a turn in 2011 when it was acquired by Microsoft for a considerable sum of $8.5 billion. Under the Redmond giant's umbrella, the app continued to evolve, although over time it began to face growing competition from new platforms that emerged with the arrival of smartphones. Apps like FaceTime and WhatsApp offered integrated and easily accessible alternatives, while during the COVID-19 pandemic, tools like Zoom gained ground in the field of group video conferencing.
Aware of this change in the landscape and seeking to simplify its communication and collaboration offering, Microsoft opted for Microsoft Teams as the natural successor to Skype. The free version of Teams offers virtually identical functionality to its predecessor, including instant messaging, voice calls, and video calls. To ease the transition, Microsoft has offered users the ability to log in to Teams with their Skype credentials, automatically transferring their contacts and chat history to the new platform.
According to Jeff Teper, president of collaboration apps and platforms at Microsoft 365, the experience gained with Skype over the years has been critical to the development of Teams. “We’ve learned a lot from Skype over the years, and we’ve applied that information to Teams as we’ve evolved Teams over the last seven or eight years,” he told CNBC. Teper added that the decision to shut down Skype is a response to the need “to be simpler for the market, for our customer base, and we can deliver more innovation faster, simply by focusing on Teams.”
Although Skype's closure marks the end of an important chapter in the history of digital communication, Microsoft is seeking to ensure a smooth transition for its users. Those who wish to retain their chat history will have the option to export their data before the service's final discontinuation.
Thus, with more than two decades behind it, Skype bids farewell, leaving behind an indelible legacy as one of the first applications to popularize voice and video calls over the internet, paving the way for the many remote communication tools we use today. Its innovative spirit will live on in Teams, the platform now taking the lead in the quest to connect people in an increasingly digital world.
