The end of an era. Microsoft is closing Skype in May and replacing it with the free version of Microsoft teams for consumers. Existing Skype users will be able to register in the Microsoft Teams app and have the history of their messages, group conversations and contact all automatically available without having to create another account, or they may choose to export their data to the country. Microsoft is also seeking support for calling domestic or international numbers.
“Skype users will be under control, they will have the choice,” says Jeff Epper, President of Microsoft 365 collaborative applications and platforms, in an interview with eve. “They can migrate the story of their conversations and their contacts and continue if they want, or can migrate to teams.”
If you decide to continue and bring your data to Skype with you, the exported data will include pictures and conversations of conversations. Microsoft also made a tool to easily see the existing story of the Skype conversation if you do not want to be transferred to teams.
Skype will remain online until May 5, so existing users will have about 60 days to decide whether they want to switch to Microsoft teams or export their data. “If they want to come to the teams, then the first direction is pretty immediate because we have already done the job at Backend to restore their contacts, messaging history and call records,” says Amit Fulay, Vice -President of the product in Microsoft.
The transition to Microsoft teams will keep the group conversations in the Skype, and during the 60-day window, Microsoft will also maintain the interaction, so you can send messages to team contacts and those messages will be handed over to friends still using Skype.
If you move to Microsoft teams, there is a large part of Skype that is disappearing, however. Microsoft is removing telephony parts that allow you to call domestic or international numbers or human cell phones. “A part of the reason is that we look at the use and trends, and this functionality was great at the time when Voice over IP (VOIP) was not available and mobile data plans were very expensive,” Fulay explains. “If we look at the future, this is not one thing we want to be.”
Microsoft will honor existing Skype loans, but will not provide new customers access to paid Skype features that allow you to make or receive international and domestic calls. Existing Skype reconciliation users will be able to use their loans and their Skype reconciliation within Microsoft teams by the end of their next renovation period. Existing Skype number users will also have to transfer their number to another provider, as Microsoft is no longer supporting this.
Skype Dial Pad will be part of the teams temporarily for existing loans and reconciliations, but Microsoft will not provide call plans for consumer teams like that for businesses. “The world has really moved,” says it. “Perhaps the biggest thing is the highest gang width and the lowest cost of the data plan, from us and others, has really pushed almost all traffic to VOIP.”
Acceptance of consumers moving from calling phone numbers from Skype is also a large part why the service is closing nearly 14 years after Microsoft first earned it for $ 8.5 billion. Over the past decade, services like FaceTime, Messenger and WhatsApp have made it easy to connect with friends through messages, calls and video conversations in a way with which Microsoft tried to compete with her through Skype and many of her design repetitions.
This was especially evident in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemia, when consumers gathered to enlarge instead of Skype. “Userbase Skype actually grew at the beginning of the pandemia and has been flat enough since then,” he admits. “It has not been reduced in any dramatic way. It has been relatively flat in recent years. We hope to migrate most Skype users … but we want to make sure users know they are in control. “
Microsoft will now be fully concentrated on teams for consumers, after starting the personal version in 2020. At the time, Microsoft said it was still fully engaged for Skype, but it has been clear in recent years that the company was preparing for the eventual Skype pension. In December, Microsoft killed Skype loans and phone numbers in favor of reconciliation, another sign that Skype’s end was near.
“Initially the vision was to have an experience in all work and life … But the teams were new and that was not really where we were in 2020,” he reveals. “So we continued to invest in Skype, and about two to three years ago we started bringing the consumer experience of free teams with the new client. We wanted to wait until the adoption was on the scale where we could be very convinced it was the right time.”
Skype retirement will not result in job cuts, at least not immediately. “There is a team, which is Microsoft and Skype teams. In Backend it has actually evolved into an ordinary team,” says. “There will be no breaks from work, those people will work to make things better – whether they are entertainment features of user user or innovation, it’s really to double the teams.”