OR Microsoft announced that he was closing the Skypethe once leading internet video call service that dominated the live connection in the 2000s.
Skype “will no longer be available” for use since May, the company confirmed in X, telling users that their connection information can be used at the free Microsoft Teams level in the following days.
The closure of Skype comes to 14 years after Microsoft bought the service for $ 8.5 billion in cash, marking the company’s largest acquisition at that time. Microsoft has incorporated the service into other products, such as Office and the unfortunate Windows Phone mobile service.
Skype’s popularity has faded due to the “bloom” that other competitive platforms have experienced, such as Zoom, Google Meet and Cisco Webex during the pandemic years.
Skype has also faced increased competition over the last half decade from applications such as Apple Facetime and Meta’s Whatsapp. In addition, Microsoft has invested a lot in teams, which offers many of the same services.
Skype was released in Estonia in 2003 and quickly made free calls around the world, a remarkable privilege as international calls with traditional phones were expensive.
The service quickly became popular, with eBay buying it in 2005 for $ 2.6 billion. However, the partnership did not work and eBay sold 65% of its Skype share to a group of investors for $ 1.9 billion in 2009 before Microsoft bought it in 2011.
Microsoft did not immediately return CNN’s request for comment.