This article was automatically translated from HIBAPRESS, the Arabic version:
Hibapress
The American giant of Microsoft technology announced, on Friday, the closure, as of May 5, of its application of calls by Internet Skype.
Created in 2003 by Nordic entrepreneurs, Skype changed hands several times before being bought in 2011 by Microsoft for the sum of $ 8.5 billion.
Publicized formerly for its usefulness as a means of bypassing the high prices of international calls, Skype is gradually lost ground in the face of cheaper, if not free, efficient and offering more communication options.
Users of the application thus plunged from 300 million subscribers in 2016 to only 36 million in 2023, Microsoft said in a press release.
Meanwhile, the American company has developed the Teams application, which today has 320 million monthly subscribers, and to which Microsoft Table to attract its old Skype customers.
Users will now be able to connect to Teams with their Skype identifiers, said the company, adding that the contacts and conversations of the old application will be transferred there, as are the credits and subscriptions contracted with Skype.
“We have learned a lot of Skype over the years that we have integrated into Teams (…) but we have considered that the time had come to simplify the task of the market and that of our customers,” the president of Microsoft 365 told the press.
