Communications service Skype is shutting down after 22 years. On May 5, 2025, Microsoft, which acquired the service 14 years ago, will pull the plug. Microsoft has chosen to continue only with Teams, a platform that is mainly used by companies. Skype users will soon be dependent on that too.
Skype was founded in 2003 by Swedish IT entrepreneur Niklas Zennström and his Danish business partner Janus Friss. Skype made it possible to make video calls over the internet. At its peak, the platform had 300 million users. It is not clear how many users the platform still has. In 2023, there were 36 million.
