It is the top of the highway for Skype as at present marks the official retirement of the legendary communication platform. Current Skype customers can migrate to Microsoft Groups (free) with their Skype credentials, contacts, and chat historical past mechanically transferring to the brand new platform. Skype customers can export their information till January 2026, after which will probably be completely deleted.
Microsoft’s official reasoning for shutting down Skype is “streamlining our free client communications choices so we are able to extra simply adapt to buyer wants”. Microsoft Groups (free) does include a couple of downgrades in comparison with common Skype. Group video calls are restricted to 60 minutes and you can also’t use Groups for pay-as-you-go calling and SMS like you could possibly with Skype Credit score.
From its humble beginnings in 2003 and several other main acquisitions, together with the one by Microsoft in 2011, Skype was one of the vital influential voice over IP (VoIP) platforms during the last twenty years.
