Skype, the pioneering online video calling service that has been around for more than two decades, will go offline for good after Monday.
Microsoft, which owns Skype, announced in February that the service would be available until May 5 and urged users to switch over to the free version of Microsoft Teams, its communication platform that features the ability to video call.
"Skype has been an integral part of shaping modern communications and supporting countless meaningful moments, and we are honored to have been part of the journey," Jeff Teper, Microsoft's president of collaborative apps and platforms, said in a blog post earlier this year.
Skype, founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, began as a service offering phone calls over the internet. Later, it also let users video call each other and send private messages — all for free. It was among the first video conferencing apps and exploded in popularity, at one point boasting more than 300 million users, according to the Washington Post.
In 2005, eBay purchased Skype for $2.6 billion. eBay then sold its controlling interest to a group of investors in 2009, who in turn sold the video calling service to Microsoft.
But Skype's user base has dwindled in recent years, as the app has faced growing competition from video calling and messaging alternatives such as Zoom, WhatsApp and Slack. The app went from roughly 40 million users in early 2020 to 36 million in 2023.
Microsoft says Skype users can automatically migrate all of their chats and contacts directly to Teams.
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