Skype - are you really part of MS, and will you ever get your s..tuff together?

[FirstWatt]

Skype - what the hell is going on there?
Almost FIVE (5) years ago, MS has purchased them for 8.5 Billion USD.

In the meantime, they made a huge mess with products running with windows.
Desktop App
Online (Browser) App
"Metro" App for W8 / W8.1
an App for WP

many of it having a very unintuitive user interface (talk about not being possible to close the desktop app from within the app, but only with right clicking on the task bar icon....)
Very different UI's all over the place.

Then, W10 was ready, and the Microsoft Division Skype was not even capable of delivering a touch app in time for the W10 start.
Now there is something around, but consists somehow of two apps, and those apps again are so counterintuitive that's almost incredible.
Eg there was something like confirmed contacts with Skype desktop app, something I cannot find in the new touch app. Now I see a selection of contacts, some of them I sure never thought about putting them to my confirmed Skype contacts.

And so on...

In the meantime, apps like WhatsApp overtook them on mobile, despite they had the technology, millions of users already, and whatnot.

Really, what is this team doing all the time?
How is the upper management of Microsoft leading this team, giving it clear directions?
Why is it not seamlessly integrated in important MS applications, beginning with the operating system(s), Mail (what about melting together mail and messages, for example?) and so on...

To me, Skype is a failure of epic dimensions, at least in the Windows ecosystem, and still no land in sight.

What dou you think?

 

[KimRM]

I do agree. Whenever I hear about Skype it's always business oriented. It's like they dropped the ball on consumer experiences. It's really weird. Skype has suffered under some really bad management all this years, it seems.

 

[enthuz]

I totally agree with you. It does appear as if Skype has been an afterthought for MS. Skype for Business is good and I use it a lot for work. However my consumer Skype is sub-par for reasons you mentioned. The preview apps are heading in the right direction, but are so far behind the curve that it's embarrassing. I hope all of the corporate restructuring will result in a very productive 2016.

 

[FirstWatt]

[...] The preview apps are heading in the right direction, but are so far behind the curve that it's embarrassing. I hope all of the corporate restructuring will result in a very productive 2016.

Yeah hopefully... and hopefully the restructuring will take place also at the Skype consumer team.
Skype would have had SO much opportunities...I just think the leadership there is too lazy. Too lazy to lead, to bring together instead of letting small teams walk into any arbitrary direction without strategy. At least with consumer products. I do not know the Business products though.

 

[Canjok]

I agree. Skype is not only a mess since MS bought it, but it also has less features. There was a time where you could play hangman on pc against other skype users. It was kinda fun. But now on the mobile App, I can't even exclude mobile phone contacts whereas i can exclude skype contacts from the standart contacts on the mobile App. The phone contacts were added against my will. Clearly a mess. -.-

 

[indospot]

Skype has been nothing short of awful lately. I really hope they get their stuff together, and quickly. I have no problem switching if a better alternative with decent design shows up. Oovoo has awful design though.

Sent from mTalk

 

[theefman]

As long as it works fine on ios and android I'm sure they don't care.....

 

[FirstWatt]

And instead of trying to supply at least a half decent app for W10, they spend their ressources for crap like this:
Skype teams up with Paul McCartney to create new love-themed 'Mojis' | Windows Central

 

[EspHack]

I was so happy on wlm2011 then skype came... I don't understand the problem either, I wonder why isn't Nadella firing skype guys instead of ex nokia, skype looks like yahoo to me, a dinosaur just sitting there, retarded in a way that no amount of feedback can fix, if they would listen anyway, look at their community forums, after a few minutes reading it you will lose all hope, and as far as I know Microsoft ruined skype for the people that used and loved it before the acquisition, so it essentially is ruined for everyone at this point with the exception being business since they only care about the thing working for its intended purpose indefinitely

I really wish it could be "fixed" next year or something, but if history tells us anything... I guess it will be a hard task, skype's back end itself is kind of retarded, syncing messages from old to new etc, on fb messenger you get the last 10 lines or so and only sync as you go up in the chat window, that makes so much sense...