Skype
Skype (/skaɪp/) is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, debit-based calls to landline and mobile telephones (over traditional telephone networks), and other features. It is available on various desktop, mobile, and video game console platforms.
This article is about the software. For the subsidiary company that develops it, see Skype Technologies. For the enterprise application formerly known as Microsoft Lync, see Skype for Business.
Skype was created by Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis, and four Estonian developers, and first released in August 2003. In September 2005, eBay acquired it for $2.6 billion.[5] In September 2009,[6] Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board bought 65% of Skype for $1.9 billion from eBay, valuing the business at $2.92 billion. In May 2011, Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion and used it to replace their Windows Live Messenger. As of 2011, most of the development team and 44% of all the division's employees were in Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia.[7][8][9]
Skype originally featured a hybrid peer-to-peer and client–server system.[10] It became entirely powered by Microsoft-operated supernodes in May 2012;[11] in 2017, it changed from a peer-to-peer service to a centralized Azure-based service. As of February 2023, it was used by 36 million people each day.[12]
Etymology
The name for the software is derived from "Sky peer-to-peer", which was then abbreviated to "Skyper". However, some of the domain names associated with "Skyper" were already taken.[13] Dropping the final "r" left the current title "Skype", for which domain names were available.[14]
Localization
Skype comes bundled with the following locales and languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian and European), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.
As the Windows desktop program offers users the option of creating new language files, at least 80 other (full or partial) localizations are also available for many languages.[179]
Customer service
In January 2010, Skype rescinded its policy of seizing funds in Skype accounts that have been inactive (no paid call) for 180 days. This was in settlement of a class-action lawsuit.[180] Skype also paid up to US$4 to persons who opted into the action.
As of February 2012, Skype provides support through their web support portal, support community, @skypesupport on Twitter, and Skype Facebook page. Direct contact via email and live chat is available through their web support portal. Chat Support is a premium feature available to Skype Premium and some other paid users.
Skype's refund policy states that they will provide refunds in full if customers have used less than 1 euro of their Skype Credit. "Upon a duly submitted request, Skype will refund you on a pro-rata basis for the unused period of a Product".
Skype has come under some criticism from users for the inability to completely close accounts. Users not wanting to continue using Skype can make their account inactive by deleting all personal information, except for the username.[181]
Due to an outage on 21 September 2015 that affected several users in New Zealand, Australia, and other countries, Skype decided to compensate their customers with 20 minutes of free calls to over 60 landline and 8 mobile phone destinations.[182]
Educational use
Although Skype is a commercial product, its non-paid version is used with increasing frequency among teachers, schools, and charities interested in global education projects.[183] A popular use case is to facilitate language learning through conversations that alternate between each participant's native language.[184][185][186][187]
The video conferencing aspect of the software has been praised for its ability to connect students who speak different languages, facilitate virtual field trips, and engage directly with experts.[188][189]
Skype in the classroom is another free-of-charge tool that Skype has set up on its website, designed to encourage teachers to make their classrooms more interactive, and collaborate with other teachers around the world. There are various Skype lessons in which students can participate. Teachers can also use a search tool and find experts in a particular field.[190] The educational program Skype a Scientist, set up by biologist Sarah McAnulty in 2017, had in two years connected 14,312 classrooms with over 7000 volunteer scientists.[191]
However, Skype is not adopted universally, with many educational institutions in the United States and Europe blocking the application from their networks.
