• Augustiner@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Another company Microsoft bought and ran into the ground. It’s really incredible that they managed to get their lunch stolen. They had basically a monopoly and gave it away without a fight. Hell, the colloquialism for video calling someone was to Skype them for a looong time.

    And then one small competitor comes along and it’s all gone. How can you fuck up this bad? Especially during the pandemic, in which they should have further entrenched their monopoly…

    • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 month ago

      Around these parts in the 2000s, MSN Messenger was what literally everyone used. Then Microsoft bought Skype and decided to shut down MSN Messenger. Then they also ruined Skype. Microsoft just can’t do anything right despite making so much money. It’s like they have no long term vision.

      • gitamar@feddit.org
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        1 month ago

        I would say this heavily depends on the region. In Germany, I knew nobody who used MSN, everyone only used ICQ.

        • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 month ago

          That’s why I said around these parts. Back then there was a lot more regional fragmentation.

    • virku@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Was Skype really relevant when the pandemic hit? Nobody I knew used it anymore. And teams had mostly taken over for Skype for business by then as well.

      • PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk
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        1 month ago

        My org used Skype For Business and it worked remarkably well. Much more lightweight, though somehow still a little less responsive than it should have been.

        It has that “it just works” factor for video calling, whereas Teams almost needs a fucking checklist to rattle through if someone’s audio or video feed isn’t working.

          • PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk
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            1 month ago

            Yeah I’ve still got my headsets from boxes with Skype For Business branding that have “Compatible with Microsoft Lync” stickers on them.

            It’s probably closer in UI to Skype from the 2000s that the “real” Skype never really recaptured. Not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      They intentionally killed it, when it wasn’t theirs, it was a nuisance, when it was theirs, it wasn’t a nuisance, but also not too useful.

      It’s about control, I think.

      I mean, without Skype going bad would all these <censored> IMs, especially Telegram, become so popular?