to shut down the messaging app in order to focus more on Microsoft Teams messaging service.
It should be mentioned that it is now known the official number of users that will be affected by this Microsoft decision. Skype shared back in 2023 an official number of users that still use this messaging service, which recorded 36 million users.
“We know this is a big deal for our Skype users, and we’re very grateful for their support of Skype and all the learnings that have factored into Teams over the last seven years,”, the president of Microsoft 365 collaborative apps and platforms, Jeff Teper stated.
So, all Skype chat users have the opportunity until May 5 to transfer all their contacts and conversations into the Microsoft Teams chat service. Also, the app has informed its users that they can download all the Skype messaging data with the built-in export tool directly from the app.
Back in 2016, Microsoft launched the Teams messaging app service, a year after Microsoft also launched the Skype for Business service in 2015. But, Teams has made clear that it will provide its users with a cloud communication space, which Skype lacks.
But in 2017, Skype was rumored to discontinue the Microsoft Skype for business service, which officially became true in 2021, when Microsoft announced that Teams would become an integrated communication service provider for the new Windows 11.
Probably various users have considered Teams to be more of a Slack clone, but Microsoft has a bigger goal, to develop a platform that provides a seamless collaboration with the entire Microsoft ecosystem.
Even more so, the Skype online chat has not recorded a significant number of new users or daily active users that were using the service almost every day.
“Skype took a bump — as did Teams — during the pandemic, and Skype has largely been pretty stable in the last couple of years. And we felt the time, and the feedback was such that we could make the move.”, Teper also stated.
During the entire transition period, all Skype online chat users will have the option to download the Microsoft Teams app and log in with Skype credentials in order to transfer all the contacts and conversations automatically. But it’s important to know that if Skype users do not transfer their data, all the information will be stored in Skype until the end of 2025, when they will be permanently deleted.
“We wanted to make sure that during this transition, people aren’t losing their contacts, their memories. We want to make sure we preserve all the things people have shared. And if they choose to come to Teams, we’ll restore all of their contacts and data.”, Amit Fulay, the Microsoft VP of product, stated for TechCrunch.
