Skype will no longer be integrated into Windows, but it will be Teams, similar chat and videoconferencing software also owned by Microsoft. This novelty, which emerges from the presentation of Windows 11, is interpreted by international observers as definitive proof of something that was already in the air: the divorce between Microsoft and Skype, in favor of the newcomer. Teams, in fact.
Skype will always be installable on Windows – at least in the foreseeable future. But the signal coming from Windows 11 indicates without doubt that Skype is no longer the video-calling and remote collaboration software that Microsoft is focusing on. And in the future, who knows, the Redmond company might even pull the plug. This is why now there are even those who – like the specialized magazine Techradar.com – headline “Microsoft puts the final nail on the Skype coffin”.
“The acquisitions undergone by Skype, with Ebay and then Microsoft, they removed her from her mission. Skype has no longer been able to keep pace with the evolution of the market it had opened and created “, comments to ItalianTech Enrico Noseda, who was the first and only country manager of Skype Italy (before the Microsoft acquisition and in the following period ). “It was not quick to rise on the trend that led to video calls on mobile phones and web-based applications, which can therefore be used anywhere, on all platforms and barrier-free devices,” he adds.
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Covid-19 and the triumph of video-calls (and video-meetings) confirmed Skype’s technological backwardness and allowed the take-off of new platforms such as Zoom. Google has in turn relaunched with the Meet software, again with a view to remote meetings and collaboration.
In the meantime, Microsoft seems to have lost faith in the possibility of a resumption of Skype; instead of trying to improve it, during the lockdowns he preferred to bet on Teams, which will be featured in the new Windows 11 Start menu, and will be integrated into the entire operating system. In Windows 11, the Meet Now function was also eliminated, which gave Windows 10 users easy access to Skype’s video conferencing tools. So the note with which the company wants to reassure users is of little consolation: “We know that many people love Skype and we continue to invest in it”, it reads. “Skype will no longer be a pre-installed app for new devices running Windows 11, but will be available for free download through the Microsoft Store.”
Of course, the legacy of what used to be revolutionary software remains. “Skype created a market from scratch. When it launched in 2003, international calling was a luxury, video calling needless to say. Skype has opened this world to everyone, anticipating a future that is now normal, ”says Noseda. And it became even more so with the pandemic.
Niklas Zennström, founder of Skype said that the phone calls will be free. At the time they laughed at him, especially the telephone operators. Now they don’t laugh anymore.
Skype also anticipated the trend of encrypted calls, for privacy, for its founder – Estonian – was still fresh in the memory of the mass surveillance system of the Soviet Union (which fell “only” ten years earlier).
After the US mass wiretapping scandal and Edward Snowden’s revelations, encryption has become the standard way of communicating on the web and chat (Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal and others). Skype had seen us long in this case too. The company then stopped innovating and gave way to competitors, until it is now one step away from disappearing; but his legacy will live on forever on the internet.
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