Microsoft closes Skype Office in London and Lays off 300 more employees in Redmond

[AlTech]

Our dear Redmondian friends, Microsoft, have closed their Skype Office in London and are laying off 300 more employees in their Redmond Offices.

 

The company wants Skype to be better Integrated on Windows using their new "Best on Windows" initiative.  

 

Microsoft plans to close Skype's London office and lay off most of the nearly 400 people employed there, according to the Financial Times. Microsoft confirmed the layoffs to an extent, telling the Times that it has "made the decision to unify some engineering positions, potentially putting at risk a number of globally focused Skype and Yammer roles."

Skype will still maintain offices throughout the world, including in Redmond, Palo Alto, Vancouver, and several locations in Europe. But the layoffs still indicate a shift in priorities, with anonymous former employees telling the Times that Microsoft has increasingly been taking control of Skype, replacing Skype's employees with its own.

 

And Microsoft is also laying off 300 employees in Redmond, Washington, USA.

 

Microsoft cut about 300 additional people globally this past week, the company spokesperson confirmed, with the majority of those cuts affecting those working in the Puget Sound, Wash., area. I saw a few people cut from various teams in Redmond earlier this week post about the cuts on Facebook.

 

What happened to skype anyways? Why did most people switch to WhatsApp? Do you still use Skype or have you moved to WhatsApp?

 

http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-confirms-300-more-employee-layoffs-largely-redmond-washington

 

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/17/12951996/skype-london-office-closing-layoffs

[VAkena]

3 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

What happened to skype anyways? Why did most people switch to WhatsApp? Do you still use Skype or have you moved to WhatsApp?

Skype is becoming less and less relevant to me anyway..

[RGProductions]

I use discord

[AlTech]

Just now, VAkena said:

Skype is becoming less and less relevant to me anyway..

 

Just now, RGProductions said:

I use discord

But why?

[ARikozuM]

3 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

snip

There could be one problem with a program noticed by some, but, this being tech, everyone moves over to something else. Personally I don't use Skype nor WhatsApp.

[RGProductions]

Just now, AluminiumTech said:

 

Easy. It works, which is more than can be said for skype, which literally deleted my microsoft account multiple times

[QueenDemetria]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

What happened to skype anyways? Why did most people switch to WhatsApp?

Security holes and other various problems(like crashes). Marketing probably plays a role too.

[AlTech]

Just now, QueenDemetria said:

Security holes and other various problems(like crashes).

Skype has never crashed for me......

Just now, QueenDemetria said:

Marketing probably plays a role too.

I think the lack of marketing killed it. It's too bad Microsoft sucks at marketing.

[VAkena]

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

 

But why?

I simply don't video chat much these days. It's just like how I had no reaction when Google release their Duo video chatting app, I was gonna download it but then decided not to because I simply don't care enough.

 

In an age where technology has made us so secluded from our real-world friends, I prefer the classic get-together.  

[QueenDemetria]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

Skype has never crashed for me......

I think the lack of marketing killed it. It's too bad Microsoft sucks at marketing.

Using it in an enterprise environment shows the flaws of Skypes stability, and I won't even go into the Win 10 release because that was a disaster for Skype. It is too bad that Microsoft sucks at marketing, but really it's their lack of passion is what kills most of their products.

[AresKrieger]

11 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Skype has never crashed for me......

I think the lack of marketing killed it. It's too bad Microsoft sucks at marketing.

Skype makes my laptop sad, sometimes it goes as far as to crash my audio driver which no other program has done

[Misanthrope]

Hmm. My company actually uses Skype for Office for most IM communications though I am unsure if that thing requires any external input or if it's done through the company-run exchange server anyways.

[Nowak]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

What happened to skype anyways? Why did most people switch to WhatsApp? Do you still use Skype or have you moved to WhatsApp?

 

Better alternatives came out. Skype itself is very bloated, slow and uses a fuckton of bandwidth to work. Syncing between mobile and desktop Skype doesn't even work right.

[AlTech]

6 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Hopefully those 300 move on to do more productive things

The total amount layed off was 520 (300 in Redmond and 220 in London)

[tsk]

2 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

 

What happened to skype anyways? Why did most people switch to WhatsApp? Do you still use Skype or have you moved to WhatsApp?

 

Good question, I used Skype from 2004 til 2015. And from day one it's been riddled with bugs, horrible syncing, unable to properly handle multiple devices and generally poor preformance. I've completely switched to facebook messenger, which works good for video, calls and IMs.

[LAwLz]

9 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

But why?

Because Microsoft...

 

 

Skype is full of issues right now. The reasons why I am moving away from Skype (just to mention a few):

1) Privacy has gotten worse and worse. They are moving more and more towards this system where they and government agencies get more and more access to private conversations. For crying out loud they have actually removed the E2EE Skype had before Microsoft bought them, and the NSA have said that their monitoring capabilities of Skype conversations skyrocketed (possibly with the help of Microsoft) once Microsoft took over.

Other companies on the other hand (WhatsApp and hell, even Google) has been moving towards really good and well designed E2EE.

Not to mention the fact that Microsoft visits and inspects every single link you post in Skype (and they did this before they started adding thumbnails).

 

2) It is glitchy as fuck. On Android it keeps starting by itself. Even when I close the app the proper way it starts itself again after just a few minutes. It also keeps changing my status by itself.

 

3) Security issues like your IP being exposed. I don't know if they fixed it now but it's terrible that they even allowed it to exist for so long.

 

4) Ads are annoying.

 

5) Things like saving your history is super annoying. I tried to backup my Skype history a while ago and I just couldn't. The client froze when I pressed the "display all history" (or whatever it's called right now). So once that didn't work I tried backing up the last few months. After waiting ages to the history to load I copied everything and pasted it into NotePad. But wouldn't you know it, links doesn't get copied because Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to display links as thumbnails. And that leads me to...

 

6) Limited options. Why did they not add an option to remove those stupid thumbnails? It's not fun seeing porn in the chat log while at work.

 

 

Just a few of the reasons why me and some of my friends switched. Sadly I still have to use the piece of shit called Skype because some people I know still use it.

[Tataffe]

I switched from MSN Messenger to Skype around 2008 or 2009. I mainly used it for video chats.

 

I beliebe that Skype is too bloated. It used to be way easier to use and the UI made more sense back in the day. Also syncing between the Desktops and the App (iOS in my case) does not work properly and the contact list is buggy (showing people as afk all the time). I agree with @QueenDemetria that it's the lack of passion from MS that is slowly killing it. Other services have emerged (for both private and commercial users), and in order to compete with those, Skype could probably use a complete overhaul.

 

And to make things even worse (at least in my area), Skype has started displaying fraudulent ads, see spoiler below.

Spoiler

 

[Atmos]

I don't think anyone actually cares for skype anymore.

Terrible call quality

Shit video quality

constant crashes

ip resolving

nonstop spam bots

 

For gaming or community stuff, teamspeak.

For professional use, a PHONE, and email account.

[Mr.Meerkat]

IRL friends: Skype (cause everyone has it and as long as it's one of us with the better internet hosting the group call, the audio quality is fine plus more importantly, we can have people on desktop and mobile joining the call at the same time) and facebook messenger 

Online friends: TS or Discord  (or even just in game voice chat if we're too lazy) and sometimes FB messenger depending on who

[AlTech]

16 minutes ago, Atmos said:

I don't think anyone actually cares for skype anymore.

Terrible call quality

Shit video quality

constant crashes

ip resolving

nonstop spam bots

 

For gaming or community stuff, teamspeak.

For professional use, a PHONE, and email account.

For communication with Activities outside of School and friends, I use WhatsApp and just good ol' SMS .

 

Email is for anything official and formal. Messaging is for unofficial and informal stuff.

[Shoob]

Good. I had to use Skype recently and nothing has improved for the last year or so. Thankfully most of my friends have moved past this garbage.

I miss the days when Skype was good and usable (before MS laid their dirty hands on it), without having advertisements, a terrible UI with a lot of wasted space and privacy issues. 

[VerticalDiscussions]

Skype is like a last resort application nowadays, for gamers and enthusiasts that is.

[SansVarnic]

I still use use Skype.

The current Skype Preview is worlds better than last few versions.

[ShadowCaptain]

21 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Just a few of the reasons why me and some of my friends switched. Sadly I still have to use the piece of shit called Skype because some people I know still use it.

I am currently hating skype that me and my friends use

 

Is there a viable video option though, google hangouts is wank

Ive heard discord is planning video but not yet, and I honestly dunno what else there is

[Godlygamer23]

On 9/17/2016 at 9:50 PM, VAkena said:

Skype is becoming less and less relevant to me anyway..

I don't even use Skype. I use Slack.