May 5, 2025: Microsoft has skyped out

Three months after announcing the shutdown of Skype, Microsoft is getting serious: the communication software is closing its doors 21 years after its initial release.

End of Skype: Microsoft advises users to use Teams

With the shutdown, Microsoft is discontinuing the marketing of credit packages and subscriptions as well as paid services. Existing customers with subscriptions and remaining credit can continue to use the services until the subscription has expired or the credit has been used up.

Microsoft offers the Teams app as an alternative to Skype. The company recommends that users download the Teams app and ideally sign in with their Skype account before May 5. All chats and contacts should then be accessible via Teams. The telephone function available in Skype with its own telephone number, which could also be used to call mobile and landline numbers, is no longer available in Teams.

Skype ends up with 30 million users

The app developed by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis in 2003 can be seen as a pioneer of modern messaging solutions. Even back then, it was possible to make free voice and video calls over the internet. The service was particularly popular for international communication, as Skype did not incur high telephone costs.

After several changes of ownership, Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011 for 8.5 billion US dollars and integrated the software into Windows, among other things. In 2017, the Redmond-based company announced Teams, a new communication software whose development was continuously driven forward, while the focus on Skype continued to dwindle and has now come to an end.

In its heyday, Skype had several hundred million users per month worldwide. Most recently, the communication software still had 30 million users, according to Similar Web.

(afl)