Skype era ends — legendary messenger’s 5 interesting facts

Skype, the once popular video calling solution, is to be officially shut down. The rumours were confirmed by Microsoft, which offers to switch to the Teams platform, where you can transfer your chats and contacts.

Novyny.LIVE tells interesting facts about the cult program.

How the name came about and why the program has Estonian roots

Skype Technologies was founded in Europe, despite the fact that the startup has been owned by the Redmond-based IT giant for many years. The founders in 2003 were Sweden’s Niklas Zennström and Denmark’s Janus Friis, who gathered a team of Estonian programmers to create a free video chat.

The word "Skype" comes from "Sky peer-to-peer". It refers to the P2P technology of communication between computers, which is the basis of the messenger. Since the Skyper brand was already taken, it was decided to remove the letter "r", which made the name even more successful.

Explosive growth by the standards of the 2000s

In its early years, Skype was considered to be a breakthrough and unique service. It made international video communication accessible to the general public. Users were captivated by the simple interface and free distribution model, which set a certain standard for subsequent VoIP clients.

In 2003, 3.3 million users downloaded the program, and by 2005, the number of downloads exceeded 47 million, which was a huge success for the software company of that era.

How Skype influenced culture

A few years ago, Skype was firmly in our everyday life. Everyone still remembers the branded ringtone, and memes about the "best file-sharing service" cemented the platform’s cult status.

Once upon a time, similar to the word "google", a popular expression was "to skype".

There was even the wedding via Skype

In 2011, an unusual wedding was organized and held in California via video, where Skype came to the rescue.

The problem was the depressing circumstances that prevented the pair from meeting live. Samuel Kim, 27 years old, remained in hospital due to an infection of the lungs, but they decided not to postpone the event. The engagement was conducted virtually using the projector in the church.

Record purchase amounts

The application remained independent for a short time after its launch. Already in 2005, the company was acquired by eBay for a deal worth USD 2.6 billion. Six years later, Skype was bought by Microsoft for USD 8.5 billion, replacing the proprietary Windows Live Messenger. At that time, the service was almost dead, and its popular analogue quickly replaced it. The Skype acquisition is still considered one of the largest purchases in Microsoft’s history.

Despite its innovation, Skype did not dominate the video messaging segment for long. It was replaced by more functional competitors such as Zoom, Discord, and Telegram. They took the lead during the pandemic. After the purchase, Microsoft did not seek to develop the acquired hit and focused on Teams, destroying the once legendary messenger.

As a reminder, Telegram messenger is not going to stop its development and constantly offers users new features and capabilities. In the coming months, we expect updates that will significantly improve the experience of using the application.

We also wrote that Instagram has significantly updated its Direct messenger, adding several new tools. The new features will help the platform compete in the messaging market.