Skype
More info
- Creator
- Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis
- Released
- Discontinued
- 2024
- Owner
- Microsoft
- Type
- VoIP / chat app
- Website
- skype.com
- Wikipedia
- en.wikipedia.org
VoIP pioneer from 2003 — Estonian-Swedish founding team (Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis), built on top of P2P architecture from Kazaa.
Revolutionised cheap international calling. Bought by eBay in 2005, sold on, ultimately acquired by Microsoft in 2011 for USD 8.5 billion. Centralised in 2013 (P2P → client-server) to allow lawful intercept and better IM history.
Lost the consumer market to WhatsApp/Discord/Zoom. Microsoft announced in 2024 that Skype is being retired in favour of Teams — the end of a 20+ year era. Leaves behind the legacy "skype:" URLs that still work in email signatures the world over.