Rodmond, Wash.-Microsoft closes Skype, the Video-Calling Service that bought it for $ 8.5 billion in 2011.
The tech giant said on Friday that the Skype will retire in May and some of its services will switch to Microsoft teams, the VideoSconferent platform flagship. Skype users can use their existing accounts to log in to teams.
Microsoft has been prioritizing teams over Skype for years and the decision to fold the brand is part of a broader shift in the way people communicate online.
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Skype, founded in 2003 by a group of engineers in Tallinn, Estonia, was a pioneer in making phone calls with internet instead of fixed lines. The video calls added after online retailer eBay had purchased the service in 2005.
By 2011, when Microsoft bought it from eBay, Skype had around 170 million users worldwide, said Steve Ballmer, the then Microsoft CEO in an event that announced the planned merger.
“The Skype brand has become a verb, almost synonymous with video and speech communication,” Ballmer said.
Skype was still considered high -tech in 2017, when the recently inaugurated President Donald Trump used the board to ask journalists far from the press room of the White House.
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