Skype will ring for the last time this May as owner Microsoft retires the two-decade-old internet calling service. Skype’s cheap audio and video calls quickly disrupted the landline industry in the early 2000s and made the company a household name. But the platform has struggled to keep up with easier-to-use and more reliable rivals such as Zoom and Salesforce’s Slack in recent years. Microsoft bought Skype in 2011 for $8.5 billion after outbidding Google and Facebook – its largest deal at the time. By 2020, that number had fallen to roughly 23 million, despite a brief resurgence during the pandemic, despite Skype’s underlying technology being not suited for the smartphone era. With that, Skype will become the latest in a series of high-flying bets that Microsoft has mishandled, such as the Internet Explorer web browser and its Windows Phone. The company said on Friday \”Skype has been an integral part of shaping modern communications\”. \”We are honored to have been part of the journey,\” Microsoft said.
