Microsoft is shutting down Skype after buying it 14 years ago for $8.5 billion
CBSN
Microsoft is pulling the plug on Skype, the pioneering Internet telecommunications and video call platform it bought nearly 14 years ago for $8.5 billion.
"We will be retiring Skype in May 2025 to focus on Microsoft Teams (free), our modern communications and collaboration hub," already used by hundreds of millions of people at work, school and home," Jeff Teper, president of collaborative apps and platforms at the Redmond, Washington-based software company, said on Friday in a statement.
Microsoft in late 2012 scrapped its own instant-messaging tool, Messenger, after buying Skype the prior year. But in the more than decade since, services including FaceTime, Messenger and WhatsApp have let people connect in ways that made it difficult for Skype to compete.
