What's Microsoft's future plans for skype?

[Jazmac]

This is the NEW Microsoft. And this Microsoft will buy stuff just to own its patients. That's about it. Its a trend of how they have operated post Bill Gates. They buy it and simply fold it into its enterprise offerings, which btw is where Skype lives now. Skype has effectively replaced text messaging in my office. It has no major feature-set that make it a must have but Skype the name is what they are selling. The NEW Microsoft builds things just to say they built one too, remember Microsoft Band? Where is it now? Nothing on that but its the New Microsoft, especially where Windows is concerned, its focus is all about business. How about Linked In? Nothing. It just has a new owner but what is the future hold for Linked In except for maybe selling it off to Amazon, Samsung or Google for that matter some day. Its like Microsoft has become a band of Cutter ants roaming the countryside grabbing stuff and returning it to the hive.




Look at what they did with HoloLens. We got all wide eyed at what whey were showing but it will never reach the masses because the masses are not their focus. Medicine, military, aeronautics and other deep pocket entities is where stuff like this HoloLens stuff show up. It is always where HoloLens is demonstrated to the rest of us but beyond blogs like this one, its never showing up in BestBuy, Amazon or your big box store at a price you can afford. It won't happen. No hate, well maybe a little. But if you think this platform is building for things you want to see, bring a sandwich. Its gonna be a long wait

 

[Stephen Pedersen1]

Why in the world, when I AM CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET, and I send something, it just says "sending..."? I literally browse the internet until it sends, I've waited until the next day a couple times. What am I doing wrong? Or is it just Skype?

 

[allanwith]

There are some good points here! One thing we also have to remember is that Skype has gotten a lot of flag over time for its video conferencing bit, even if it was the default that most people used, and Skype wasn't really considered to be a true alternative to the other chat clients out there. So something had to be done.

A couple of years ago they started the process of moving away on the backend from the old peer-2-peer foundation and to a more modern centralized model. This is probably part of what gives them the new capabilities such as being able to "like" a single message. However, I am not sure whether video conferencing has gotten better than before, perhaps someone can tell me? Anyway, the backend changes is presumably a big part of the shift to the new clients, which unfortunately doesn't get the attention it deserves.

Personally I think they should have kept the new clients in beta for much longer and let it be optional, but I am guessing they wanted to kill all of the old clients, so that everyone could get moved to the new backend as soon as possible. Most likely they had some proxies between the old and the new that were going to be over flooded if too many stayed on the old backend.

 

[AccentAE86]

I use Skype to make phone calls out from my desktop without picking up the phone. It's nice. It sends my mobile number to the receiver's caller ID so they don't see a strange number calling them.

BUT... it's horribly unreliable for RECEIVING calls. When someone tries to call me on skype, it probably only rings my phone 10% of the time. It's brutal. But it's great for making calls from a desktop. Or for a planned video chat/conference. But in terms of dynamic usage on the fly? A JOKE!

I want to give MS a kick in the balls, except they've dropped the ball so many times there are no balls left to kick.

 

[Great deal]

Never thought id say this...Satya Nadella needs to go, so many opportunities missed under his watch..

 

[Dupdopy]

As a former Skype (and then MS) employee, I can say this: MS never understood the true value of Skype and never figured out what to do with it.
Heavy and slow mobile clients, usernames AND email addresses as account names (vs mobile phone numbers as account "names"), no great new features for years - all this made people switch to modern, light and fast solutions.

It's pretty sad.

 

[John Loo]

Yeah.. gotta agree that Skype is heavier (and crashier for me) than other apps. It's really bull**** to have to wait so long for Skype to load just to read an SMS. Sometimes I just open the SMS app on my Lumia. But then Skype continues to bug me about notifications for SMS that I've already read. Urgh.. Why can't Skype sync with the SMS app to figure out that a message has already been read? The only usefulness of Skype managing SMS is the ability to receive and send SMS on PCs.

And you know what I'd like to see added to Skype? The ability to make/receive a call on my PC through my phone. Skype doesn't provide mobile data and for many of us I think, our telcos offer unlimited calls or free calls to people on the same network. I know it's a stretch and the technology probably isn't there to enable users to make/receive calls on their PC through a phone, but it'd be really cool if possible. It might undermine Skype's own call packages, but I still use Skype's call packages to make international calls because it's cheaper.

 

[Jcmg62]

Microsoft should be kicking themselves for the way they've mis-handled skype in recent years.

Windows 10 has been out for 2 years now....its supposed to be this all encompassing OS with tightly bound messaging, communication and productivity features working across every form factor, and in some cases they've nailed that, but when it comes to skype they just have no clue.

I would have expected skype to be a baked in feature to Windows 10 (and W10M for what it's worth, but it's still just an after thought in the windows store.

Apple hard wired FaceTime into ios, and it works really well.

Why can't Microsoft do the same with skype

 

[Bobvfr]

And you know what I'd like to see added to Skype? The ability to make/receive a call on my PC through my phone. Skype doesn't provide mobile data and for many of us I think, our telcos offer unlimited calls or free calls to people on the same network. I know it's a stretch and the technology probably isn't there to enable users to make/receive calls on their PC through a phone, but it'd be really cool if possible. It might undermine Skype's own call packages, but I still use Skype's call packages to make international calls because it's cheaper.

Do not suggest this, it may happen.

What we want is to send and receive SMS on our PC's using your phone but NOT through Skype, just use the messaging app.

And the same with calls, there is already a "Phone" app, no need to screw up Skype with this.

Keep Skype for Skype but make it better.

Then re-announce the ability to use your phone/PC combo, I am pretty sure this was announced about 2 years ago.

 

[John Loo]

Do not suggest this, it may happen.

What we want is to send and receive SMS on our PC's using your phone but NOT through Skype, just use the messaging app.

And the same with calls, there is already a "Phone" app, no need to screw up Skype with this.

Keep Skype for Skype but make it better.

Then re-announce the ability to use your phone/PC combo, I am pretty sure this was announced about 2 years ago.

I see your point. Then the Phone app on PC should be able to divert calls from Windows 10 Mobile to a PC. That would be cool.

They announced it 2 years ago? Urgh... Another disappointment.....

 

[Matt Packwood]

I see your point. Then the Phone app on PC should be able to divert calls from Windows 10 Mobile to a PC. That would be cool.

They announced it 2 years ago? Urgh... Another disappointment.....

My problem is the Mobile apps, and the fact that so much of the functionality I had come to rely on has been removed (indeed talking to Microsoft they are so focused on making Skype Snapchat 2.0 that they have no interest in making the product what it was).

This is the "we need more younger users, they like Snapchat, copy that" business model. And having spent I would imagine an enormous amount of time and money on the new clients (and back end changes) there is no budget or will to add "boring but necessary" function back in (read the Microsoft forums for the anger there is about whether Microsoft is "adding in new features" or "fixing things that should never have been removed"

Personally the iPhone client is useless, I use so i get notifications and am using the Mac client, which allows me to:
See who is online
Send SMS messages to contacts
Contact people by Skype or by Phone

Matt

 

[John Loo]

But hey.. some love for Skype, I really like how I can just type an emoticon in Skype and it will translate into an animated emoticon unlike other apps where you have to open the emoticons menu and select the emoticon you want. And then I can just copy the typed emoticon and paste it over and over if I want to spam an emoticon. This is I think something great that Skype inherited from MSN Messenger.

 

[davebwi]

Hi I know its a bit off topic. But since this place is filled with microsoft enthusiasts, I wanted to know what exactly could be microsoft's intentions for the new skype. They totally ruined it while making it to compete with giants like whatsapp.
What are your views?

Well that's a good Question, I and my company have been Using Teams to Message in and out of office... I thought it would replace Skype...But it never did yet...

Thanks Dave

 

[tofab123]

Skype Translator ... the amazingly cool and awesome technology that can real time translate from one language to another is only avail on desktop windows. I cannot understand why this feature is not avail on iPhone and android. That is the single most not-comprehend issue I have with skype. The second most is why is the same features not avail on all platforms when MS has spend years unifying the code base. This makes no sense to me

 

[John Loo]

Skype Translator ... the amazingly cool and awesome technology that can real time translate from one language to another is only avail on desktop windows. I cannot understand why this feature is not avail on iPhone and android. That is the single most not-comprehend issue I have with skype. The second most is why is the same features not avail on all platforms when MS has spend years unifying the code base. This makes no sense to me

WeChat has a translation function. But they don't want to update their Windows Phone version so the function is not available for Windows. Urgh..