Internet Voice Provider Skype to Close Service in May 2025
In somewhat of a surprising development, global software and technology giant Microsoft has just announced that they intend to close one of the internet’s most familiar Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) style brands, Skype, during May 2025.
Microsoft purchased Skype for $8.5bn in 2011, which was intended to deepen the company’s longstanding focus on real-time video and voice communications. But since then, many users have moved to alternative platforms, such as WhatsApp, and Microsoft itself has increasingly put more of their energy toward the ‘Teams’ platform.
Jeff Teper, the company’s president of collaborative apps and platforms, said: “With Teams, users have access to many of the same core features they use in Skype, such as one-on-one calls and group calls, messaging, and file sharing. Additionally, Teams offers enhanced features like hosting meetings, managing calendars, and building and joining communities for free.”
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However, I personally still use Skype to communicate with quite a few family and friends around the world, not least because it still works across a lot of platforms where other apps do not. But now customers have been given a choice, switch to Microsoft Teams or export our Skype data (chats, contacts, history etc.). Nice, thanks Microsoft.
The Skype Website currently states: “Skype is retiring in May 2025. Beginning March 2025, you will be able to sign into Microsoft Teams Free with your Skype credentials, and your chats and contacts will be right there ready for you. Enjoy the features you love about Skype, including free calling and messaging, as well as new features like meetings and communities, all on Teams app.”
The only problem is you can’t currently access ‘Teams’ on nearly as many platforms as Skype.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Teaching my Mum how to use Skype meant that i get to see her in Video calls – She’s elderly and struggles with most things tech-based. This means i likely won’t get to see her at all now apart from when i go home a couple of times a year and the prospect of even having the time to teach her how to use MS Teams, nevermind that being a success is closer to zero. Gutted!
There’s a million other video apps, I am sure you can both work something out
It’s no harder to dial on WhatsApp than it is any other phone. Just saying.
All well and good, but she doesn’t have a smart phone and won’t have one. Getting her a basic laptop and teaching her to use it was tough enough. Using the applications and how a browser works was as tough.
Simply put, if all you’re gonna put is something snarky, maybe just don’t!!
I think there is a market for a really simple Videoconferencing solution for domestic use that does not need a phone or laptop, for just this kind of situation.
Something that can receive inbound calls from a variety of services (Teams, Apple, facebook/Whatsapp), and also make calls/join video meetings (Zoom, Teams, GotoMeeting etc).
Doro phones and similar exist for a reason. Simplicity sells (at a premium) to certain audiences.
The Facebook portal hardware was perhaps too early or not marketed correctly.
On Whatsapp you can do video calls
Not surprising, I’ve not used Skype for awhile, just signed in again and the last time I used it was 2019, I guess when I swapped from windows phone (that I loved) to android, Skype on android for me was a terrible experience, WhatsApp had be going 10 years by then and a fully mature application, and it worked perfectly.
A big shame – Skype is very flexible as a calling platform, Teams less so. Skype works more like a phone, you don’t have to set appointments, you can call people freely that are not part of your community. It feels like the end of an era.
Whatsapp and Discord do that except have far more users
Zoom, googlemeet and Teams are used by most companies
Classic case of competition beating the incumbent
The article says its surprising, but actually this has not been all that surprising at all. For quite a while now, Microsoft has been making it very clear that the Skype product was going to be fully phased out and shut down in favour of Microsoft Teams.
To begin with, Office Communicator was renamed Lync and then it was renamed Skype for Business (which happened around about the point when Microsoft bought Skype). But when Microsoft launched Office 365, the Skype for Business app was not really connected to the Office 365 ecosystem: although some parts were synced like Active Directory, it was effectively standalone, and Microsoft set about working to create Microsoft Teams which would be fully integrated with Office 365 (now Microsoft 365).
Teams has long since been replacing Skype for Business since 2019, and even then, it was clear Microsoft intended to phase out Skype as they had effectively migrated the technology into the Teams application.
As much as it is sad for the world that the first mainstream VOIP application is closing down, this has been written on the walls for a long time now. Even more so with the rise of Discord, WhatsApp, Zoom and many other VOIP services which have negated a reason to be using Skype and which don’t have the issues Skype had from the start: it was Peer-to-Peer (although I think they eventually migrated it to some other system, it didn’t have the security that modern systems had), whereas most other platforms are secured through the providers’ servers.
Teams is hot garbage, i cringe when corporate types insist on having an unintelligible conference with it. Personally I don’t use skype so it’s not a big loss but i lament having to use Teams
We use Teams for work, okay we are supposed to use Teams for work, I have a peak now and again on my computer, but that is it. You are certainly correct, it is hot garbage and I would not use it for home use.
I used to use Skype a lot to chat to some people, but we have all moved over to Discord now as it is a better app and works fine on any platform and not controlled by some large company
Best app is Signal.
What if you have credit on your skype account, is there some way to transfer it out?
Not at all helpful who have had a Skype Number for years. In my case it’s a UK number that has worked seamlessly. It’s unclear whether this number can be ported and I have yet to find a reasonably priced service provider that has stellar reviews
That is the problem with relying on this sort of thing, but then again,it seems like we can’t rely on anything these days, even the old home phone numbers are vanishing as the system is being changed.
Over the years I have used different software and services, Aim, MSM messenger and other things that been gone years ago.
I am not surprised that MS have not got rid of Skype, I am more surprised they have not done it a while back.
https://www.thevoipshop.co.uk/how-to-port-your-skype-number-to-thevoipshop
If you use your Skype Number for Business and need to port your skype number contact The VoIP Shop who can port your SKYPE number with a 100% success rate
It looks like the SMS service has already ceased! I maintained a small amount of credit balance and used the service to send text messages to friends & family travelling overseas who had no roaming plans in place.
Well, Microsoft couldn’t countenance having products that the customer wanted and was able to access and use easily for too long, . . . . . so now Skype joins the Windows phone.
Truly the people running computing and telecomms are *rseholes of the first water