Minuk's Musings and Pulling the Plug on Skype

Did you ever use Skype? Many of us did.

 

Well, things do change and Microsoft has now officially pulled the plug on Skype – gone forever.

 

Once one of the world’s post popular websites, Skype was a communications juggernaut through the 2000s.

 

The company was acquired by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion and the platform grew tremendously, at one point having over 300M monthly active users.

 

Competitors emerged but the real death blow came in 2021 when Microsoft Teams was integrated by default into Windows 11.

 

The chart below shows the level of google searches for Skype, Zoom and MS Teams over time.

 

 

We use MS Teams here at BMO. The latest addition to our system is called Microsoft Copilot which can summarize long meetings into concise notes automatically.

 

Microsoft Stock

 

Year to date = +4.5%

3-year average return = 19.5%

5-year average return = 20.0%

10-year average return = 26.5%

May 9, 2025 Factset

 

Hope you have a nice weekend.

 

Rich

Investment Advisor