Microsoft has made some big changes lately as the company moves to change priorities. We understand the Skype office in London has been set to shut down soon, and the majority of the nearly 400 employees will be laid off.
This is a big change, but it is also something Microsoft has been doing behind the scenes.
According to the Financial Times, Skype developer Dan Wellman claimed that Microsoft has been firing longtime Skype employees and replacing them with its own.
We do not view this as a surprise because since the popular instant messenger was acquired by Microsoft, not much in terms of changes have been done to the product. There have been some changes, but for the most part, Skype still looks and performs the same.
Since then, we've seen the rise of several messenger services that have come along and surpassed Skype in overall monthly users. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger is now two of the most popular posts for sending messages and making calls.
Many folks still use Skype because it is still one of the best services for voice and video calls. It is used among many businesses across the world, and Microsoft has been leveraging that advantage for quite some time with Skype for Business.
Still, competitors such as Slack have decided to come directly after Skype for Business by adding similar features such as video calling. This is one of the main reasons why many business users have been using Skype, and now it is no longer unique.
Slack has become such a huge problem for Microsoft that the company has decided to create Skype teams to come up with ideas to combat this growing threat. It won't be easy because Skype, in its current form, needs a huge overhaul in design before it can be seen as something fresh.
Another proof that Microsoft realizes the position Skype is in, the company decided work with Lenovo on allowing its Skype and OneDrive apps to be preloaded on the company's devices. This is a good move seeing as many Android users tend to take advantage of the Google alternatives.
Google's alternative to Skype right now is Hangouts, and it is growing in popularity. We've seen on YouTube when folks are livestreaming, they tend to use Google Hangouts when others are active from a remote location.
No one is doing this with Skype, and Microsoft should view this as a huge problem going forward.
