Microsoft is reportedly killing Skype

[gloria@sh.itjust.works]

They are not killing Skype, they just now bury the corpse. Skype died by malnutrion and bad parenting by MS a decade ago.

[phobosanomaly@feddit.uk]

My org used Skype For Business and it worked remarkably well. Much more lightweight, though somehow still a little less responsive than it should have been.

It has that "it just works" factor for video calling, whereas Teams needs fucking checklist throttle through if someone's audio or video feed isn't working.

[infeeeee@lemm.ee]

Skype for business was not skype, it was lync, they just renamed it after the acquisition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_for_Business

[obelix@feddit.org]

It's amazing how they fumbled this. There was a time when video calls were Skype. Everybody was using Skype, everybody had it installed, people used it to chat and then ... something happened. Microsoft did nothing. Or did the wrong kind of stuff. Software started to suck. And when the pandemic came, Zoom took over and nobody even tried to use Skype. That really, really are some bad business decisions there

[junkthief@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

Skype for business is Skype in name only. It’s basically Office communicator with several name changes

[phobosanomaly@feddit.uk]

Yeah I've still got my headsets from boxes with Skype For Business branding that have "Compatible with Microsoft Lync" stickers on them.

It's probably closer in UI to Skype from the 2000s that the "real" Skype never really recaptured. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.

[kikutwo@lemmy.world]

Forgot it was even still around.

[pycorax@lemmy.world]

It seems like a very underrated feature but Skype's overseas calling feature was great and the 60 mins I get each month with 365 was really nice. Them getting rid of that basically made Skype useless.

[Guest]

Lololol Skype was already dying when eBay fucked up. Hardcore revisionism here.

[rottingleaf@lemmy.world]

Reportedly? It's been dead since (in case of Linux) version 8.3 (just to hint at its age, it's in Qt 4 and supports ALSA) stopped logging in.

Exchanging files via Skype was very easy. Roleplaying in groupchats.

[rottingleaf@lemmy.world]

They intentionally killed it, when it wasn't theirs, it was a nuisance, when it was theirs, it wasn't a nuisance, but also not too useful.

It's about control, I think.

I mean, without Skype going bad would all these <censored> IMs, especially Telegram, become so popular?

[rottingleaf@lemmy.world]

It didn't "start to suck", they intentionally transitioned it, from old lean clients working over p2p usable in unbelievably bad connectivity conditions, to something server-based and fat laggy clients with typical Microsoft quality. They they turned off authentication servers for the old Skype.

If the old Skype were still functional today, nobody would say it sucks. OK, maybe no stickers and such.

[clubb@lemmy.world]

That's Microsoft for you

[joekrogan@lemmy.world]

They just reskinned it and slapped irc in it and called it teams

[deebster@programming.dev]

I have a load of credit on there still (got tricked by them deactivating my credit and topped up unnecessarily). I still use it for international calls at least once a month, I hope this news story is overblown.

[tankplanker@lemmy.world]

It also cobbled in groups from Exchange, and the Collab site from SharePoint. Its pretty much three raccoons in a trench-coat.

[Guest]

I still use it to make international calls to family (it's my only use case for it). Does anyone know of a good replacement (preferably FOSS) that allows calling on landlines (yup, old people still use them)?

[andallthat@lemmy.world]

Not FOSS but you can check Google Voice and see if the pricing for the country you need to call is convenient

[veeesix@lemmy.ca]

Thank goodness! My parents refuse to move the group chat to anything else.

[kautau@lemmy.world]

Well, they’re doing what they already have been and absorbing it into teams. Teams video chat is littered with the bits of leftover Skype tech references, they’re just making sure it’s an enterprise product they can bill monthly for instead of a free consumer product