On May 7, 2025, Beijing time, Microsoft officially announced that on July 31, 2025, it will completely stop the Skype service. This voice and video software, which was once popular all over the world and changed the way of communication for countless people, has finally declared to go out of the business after 20 years of splendor and struggle.
Official announcement
Microsoft released a statement on its official blog that Skype will officially terminate all services on July 31 this year, including video calls, voice calls, instant messaging, and file transfers between individual users. At that time, users will no longer be able to log in to the Skype application, the server will also be completely shut down.
Microsoft said that this decision is to integrate its communication tools resources, to promote the full popularity of Teams, and to respond to the contemporary business and individual users’ of modern communication efficiency and collaboration features of higher requirements. Indeed, Skype’s market positioning has been awkward and ambiguous since Teams’ explosive growth during the outbreak. “We won’t forget Skype’s revolutionary contribution to global communications, but now it’s time to embrace the future of a new generation of collaboration tools.” Microsoft wrote in a statement.
A legend comes to an end
Skype was first co-founded in 2003 by Estonian developers Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn, and was acquired by eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion and then by Microsoft in 2011 for a whopping $8.5 billion. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Skype was hailed as “the world’s first choice for home and business telecommunication”. It was considered the pioneer of VoIP technology, as it broke down national boundaries and allowed users to make free calls, hold teleconferences, and even make international landline calls.
However, after entering the mobile Internet era, Skype gradually lagged behind the times, and competitors such as WhatsApp, WeChat, FaceTime, and Zoom quickly rose to the forefront, rapidly eating into Skype’s market share with a lighter experience, stronger social features, and more localized services. Although Microsoft has tried to pull back users through the integration of Outlook, Windows 10 system built-in, and combined with Office, but with little success. According to Statista data, as of the end of 2024, Skype’s monthly active users have fallen to less than 20 million, while Teams in the same period more than 320 million users.
Users say goodbye
Once the news of Skype’s imminent shutdown was confirmed, it immediately triggered a hot debate on social media. Many old users have shown screenshots of their video chats with distant friends and relatives, expressing their reluctance to part with this “old friend of the Internet”.“I rely on Skype to keep in touch with my parents in the U.S. Now that they’re older, it’s not easy to learn new tools, so I’m a little anxious.” A microblogger wrote.
Some business users even expressed concern. Some small and medium-sized businesses that still rely on Skype for customer communication are worried about the impact of data migration and contact disruption. Microsoft also emphasized in the announcement that users need to export chat records and contact information before the shutdown to avoid data loss.
Currently, Microsoft has released a set of detailed data export guidelines and opened the Skype-to-Teams migration tool to help users make a seamless transition.
Market reaction
The industry generally believes that the discontinuation of Skype marks a comprehensive transformation of Microsoft in the field of enterprise communication and remote collaboration. Teams, as a core tool in Microsoft’s ecosystem, has been enhancing its functions in recent years, and has tried to break the boundary of “enterprise tools” and expand to more fields such as education, healthcare, and personal collaboration.
Some analysts point out that Microsoft’s move is precisely to focus resources on high-growth, sustainable platforms, phasing out traditional projects. In contrast, Teams has stronger Office 365 integration capabilities, richer plug-in support, and a wider range of collaboration scenarios, and has become the core of Microsoft’s next-generation communications strategy.
The Verge, an international technology review website, commented, “The discontinuation of Skype is the end of an era and symbolizes the beginning of the development of communication tools toward integration and platformization in a comprehensive manner.”
Regulatory and compliance issues
It is worth noting that Skype has a large international user base worldwide, and many countries and regions used to regard it as a “semi-public communication platform”. Now that the platform is closed, some international organizations and governments have raised questions about data security and platform responsibility.
Microsoft said that all Skype-related user data will be deleted or migrated in accordance with global data privacy regulations such as the GDPR, and that users will be able to export their chat logs and choose to delete their accounts. The company also promised not to use user data for advertising or third-party purposes. Nonetheless, some privacy advocates argue that platforms should be shut down with longer notice periods and multiple migration options to minimize the risk of “technological disruption” for small and medium-sized users.
Future outlook
With the development of AI and cloud computing, a new generation of communication tools is rapidly emerging. OpenAI’s recently released voice assistant ChatGPT Voice is being combined with the voice call function, WhatsApp is also constantly enhancing the multiterminal videoconferencing experience, and Apple is upgrading the FaceTime function in iOS. Under this general trend, Skype’s exit from the market seems to be the result of natural evolution. The development of the instant messaging industry has long since shifted from a single call function to multi-dimensional capabilities such as collaboration integration, AI assistants, and cross-platform support. However, there are also voices pointing out that Skype’s exit also reminds us of a reality – in the rapidly developing wave of technology, even once irreplaceable tools will eventually be replaced by more advanced programs.
Conclusion
Skype’s discontinuation is not just the closure of an application, but also a turning point in the history of Internet communication. It was the first time countless people spoke to their loved ones overseas “face to face” window, but also a generation of remote work of an enlightenment tool. Although it will be off the stage forever, the spirit of “conversation across space” that it started will continue in every voice call in the future.
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