Skype, the Estonian Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) platform, ended its life for good on Monday, the 5th of April, after almost 22 years of operation, reports Estonian broadcaster ERR.
Microsoft, the owner of Skype, announced that it is focusing on the further development of its chat and videoconferencing product Teams and that Skype users’ contacts will be automatically migrated to the platform.
Skype was a pioneer in VoIP technology and helped Estonia become a start-up and technology hub soon after its launch. It became operational in August 2003.
However, in recent years, as the focus has shifted to messaging and video conferencing applications, Skype has started to lose market share to newer competitors including Zoom, Slack, Signal and Google Meet.
When Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011, it had around 150 million monthly users, but by 2020 this had fallen to around 23 million.
According to Microsoft, there are now around 320 million monthly active users of Teams.
Skype was originally created by four Estonian programmers – Priit Kasesalu, Jaan Tallinn, Ahti Heinla and Toivo Annus.
Before smartphones and messaging apps became popular, one of Skype’s main features was the ability for users to make free calls to other Skype users.
Estonian Skype shuts down for good
