Skype Has Now Been Retired in Favor of Microsoft Teams

Skype retired Microsoft Teams

Microsoft has officially retired Skype today after announcing in February that the app would be replaced by the free version of Teams. Skype users are now automatically redirected to Microsoft Teams, where they should find all their chats and contacts.

Microsoft Teams Free already supports the core features of Skype, including on-on-one and group calls, messaging, and file sharing. However, Teams offers more power user features such as calendar scheduling, better file sharing with OneDrive integration, and Discord-like communities.

For Skype users who still have a subscription or Skype credits, Teams offers a Skype Dial Pad to continue using these paid services until they expire. It’s also possible to receive phone calls to a Skype Number for the remainder of an existing subscription from the Teams mobile and desktop apps, though Microsoft recommends that customers transfer or port their Skype Number to a new carrier.

Microsoft purchased Skype for $8.5 billion, and the app went on to replace the company’s old-school MSN Messenger service. In the following years, however, Skype struggled to stay relevant when apps like WhatsApp or Snapchat saw their popularity explode. With the launch of Microsoft Teams back in 2017, Skype became less of a priority for the company, and the writing was probably on the wall for quite some time.

While Skype is joining the Microsoft graveyard today, Microsoft is not discontinuing Skype for Business Server, the on-premises version of Skype for Business (the cloud-based Skype for Business Online has already been retired). On the consumer side, GroupMe, a student-focused messaging app that was acquired by Skype in August 2011, also lives on and was recently updated with a new Copilot integration.

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Thurrott