“Goodbye Skype, hello Teams”
It’s the last hurrah for Skype. “Goodbye Skype, hello Teams,” the Skype website now reads.
As PCMag reports, this really shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone, since Microsoft made the announcement that they were planning this switchover back in February. “In order to streamline our free consumer communications offerings so we can more easily adapt to customer needs, we will be retiring Skype in May 2025 to focus on Microsoft Teams, our modern communications and collaboration hub,” Microsoft said in a statement.
To facilitate the migration to Teams, Microsoft has been allowing users to sign in using Skype credentials. Once signed in, users have then seen all their Skype chats and contacts appear in Teams. This transition gave those who don’t want to use Teams time to export their existing Skype data.
New customers will no longer be able to make and receive international and domestic calls using pay-as-you-go credit and subscriptions. For existing customers, Skype Credit did remain accessible until May 5, and now those who still have an active subscription and Skype Credits can use the Skype Dial Pad to make calls to landlines and mobile numbers… at least for now.
Skype was created by Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis, and four other Estonian developers. After its launch in 2003, the peer-to-peer video calling service gained widespread popularity since it let users talk to friends, family, or clients without paying extra long-distance charges. By the fall of 2005, Skype had gained 40 million active users and was acquired by eBay for $2.6 billion. Microsoft then acquired the service in 2011 for $8.5 billion.
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