Immigration Canada wanted proof of my wife and I’s relationship, so we dumped a packet of printed call logs on them as thick as a novel. Skype certainly served its purpose.
Not really. It’s just called “Teams” now.
Still find it absolutely wild that Microsoft fucked up during the global pandemic and allowed Zoom to slide right into the communications spot Skype should have been.
Fucking idiots.
Hey, RIM/Blackberry’s CEO went to mobile world Congress in 2010, 3 solid YEARS after the iPhone launched, was dominating and defining the smartphone world and said, “we feel touchscreen is not the future of mobile phones” and rolled out another hybrid touch/keyboard model like the 5 they already had
Blackberry was $150/share as of 2009 with the entire world in front of it. It’s now worth $3.59/share.
to be fair i miss physical keyboards on phones. i wish we still had space for it.
I’d happily have a phone half an inch thicker if it meant a folding or sliding physical keyboard for my large hands.
Same. Colossal pain in the ass.
Get yourself a RIMjob and help bring them back
You could get a Bluetooth keyboard. Literally pick your size.
You have to charge it separately, it’s not quite as convenient
Intel thought the iPhone market was going to be too small so they didn’t agree to manufacture their CPUs
While also completely missing the boat on the potential of graphics cards and watching Nvidia and even AMD become massively more relevant in recent years.
Netflix tried to get distribution in Blockbuster and a partnership w/them and were told to fuck off …
Blackberry and Nokia were so slow to react to the iPhone, it was painful to watch.
And then, to bring us full circle to OP, Microsoft made it’s strategic acquisition of Nokia long after they had squandered enviable market share to Apple and Google 😂 https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/25/11766540/microsoft-nokia-acquisition-costs
Their stuff was better, but disadvantaged by public perception. A perfect storm one can say.
Their stuff was significantly worse in user experience. Buttery smooth scrolling and highly reactive multi touch on a touch screen only device was revolutionary. Touch screens back then were known to be shitty to use. The competition to the iPhone were phones with tons of buttons, styluses and cumbersome user interfaces.
All previous players in the smartphone market Blackberry, Nokia, Palm, Windows mobile were slow to adapt and failed.
Palm’s webOS was competitive to iOS and in many ways superior. It failed because of mediocre hardware, bad carrier deals, and running out of money too quickly.
Google‘s Android succeeded despite sucking until about version 4 by willpower and deep pockets from Google.
The original introduction keynote for the iPhone was mindblowing back then.
with tons of buttons, styluses and cumbersome user interfaces.
My dad had one. I liked that more. What you call cumbersome I call clean and sharp.
While those rows of vaguely symbolic mildly nauseating icons we have now irritate, overload and suppress me.
And back then I didn’t know that, but making Tcl/Tk programs for Windows Mobile of that time, for example, was as easy as for desktops.
All previous players in the smartphone market Blackberry, Nokia, Palm, Windows mobile were slow to adapt and failed.
Yes, that’s why Stephen Elop went from Microsoft to Nokia, buried Nokia’s relevant smartphone business, then went right back to Microsoft. Blackberry was too business-oriented, they should have marketed more universally.
And they even dropped Maemo. Maemo didn’t have any of Symbian’s supposed “burning” traits. Nobody can persuade me a Linux+Qt based system is worse than iOS, especially of that time.
Dunno about Palm then.
Windows Mobile was Microsoft’s accidental good product, of course they decided to bury that as soon as they found an excuse.
Let’s clarify this - I don’t consider iPhone anything good. Its success is a result of a cultist phenomenon which didn’t lead to anything good either. I agree about Android.
But I can also see how that phenomenon happened, I myself looked in awe at anything Apple, just where I live it was and is considered luxury stuff. I also had this indoctrination from stupid books and articles about Stephen Jobs being some genius and Apple being a good company and the underdog. Had a children’s book about computers with the semi-transparent colored plastic iMac and classic MacOS screenshots, and had seen an ad about the lamp-shaped iMac G5, liked that aesthetic, wanted that. Used QuickTime browser plugin under Windows 2000, and my dad had an iPod. By the time I’ve seen a Mac IRL Apple’s aesthetic mutated into some ugly crap I didn’t like. I still feel that awe in what others do with software like Hotline and KDX and other things that originated on Macs. Apple had a huge emotional capital. Unfortunately, it went the way it went.
Using TCL/Tk and Qt based apps on smartphones with a stylus was a pain in the butt in my experience.
You probably mean Windows Phone, not mobile. Yes, Windows Phone 7 and 8 on Nokia phone were really compelling.
Being able to scroll and zoom real websites smoothly on a phone, instead of having to use crappy WAP was huge.
This meant lots of people were getting an iPhone as their first smartphone.
The iPhone succeeded initially because of ease of use. Of course Apple‘s brand image played a role as well. When it came out it was 1000 US$, making it more expensive than other phones. So it instantly became a status symbol.
Ease of use and status meant the executives of corporations started to demand their IT departments make the iPhone work with their Microsoft based networks and such.
Later on Apple started supporting corporate features and mobile device management for corporations really well. Corporate IT loves iPhones because of the great management options, the limited range of models, and long support with software updates. Once Apple had a foot in corporate, their success became cemented.
You probably mean Windows Phone, not mobile. Yes, Windows Phone 7 and 8 on Nokia phone were really compelling.
No, I mean Windows Mobile. Windows Phone with those tiles - no.
Once Apple had a foot in corporate, their success became cemented.
Dunno, it felt like the cult part fired much earlier and for much longer.
They’re a cyber security firm now. Wild stuff.
I think he felt right, but at the same time Blackberry wasn’t properly marketed.
And maybe having a touchscreen option would be good enough.
Did they really? Microsoft championed Teams and its pretty accepted in corporate environments today, especially if they are already on Microsoft.
Afaik, Skype for Business was merged into Teams. Skype for non-business consumers has been virtually dead for longer. The way I see it, Microsoft let go of the brand, the value of which is questionable in this decade. When they bought it, I remember the rumors saying it was because of its voice codec, which probably got used in everything from xbox live to teams in the end.Nobody uses Teams voluntarily. It’s always imposed by corporate.
Skype was the term for skyping. It’s like buying a social media that coined the term tweet and changing it’s name to a letter. Stupidest shit ever.
Microsoft has 1 massive disadvantage when it tries to enter new markets.
It has to deal with brutal cutthroat competition from its worst enemy: Microsoft.
Ms internal politics destroy almost all its successes, their politics are why theyve never really been a threat, for every skype there’s a teams which cuts them off at the knees lest it cost a division head their chance at a promotion.
IMHO, the pandemic just allowed everyone to see how much better of an experience Zoom had over Skype.
I worked in an office where half of corporate used Skype, and the cooler sub-brands used Zoom. No one in the main corporate office was happy about using Skype. Microsoft had been neglecting it for quite some time.
how much better of an experience Zoom had over Skype.
I hate Zoom
I couldn’t get my head round this at all. Everyone used Skype where I worked, and it seemed hugely popular. By the time COVID happened, I was in another job, and all of a sudden everyone was going mad about this Zoom program. I’d never heard of it, but it just came out of nowhere and everyone on the planet was using it. How on earth Skype fumbled it so hard is absolutely staggering.
Skype didn’t fumble it, Microsoft just doesn’t know how to strategy. When they bought Skype, they killed MSN and told people to move to Skype, whereas they should’ve integrated the two to make the transition seamless. Then they had both Teams and Skype for Business at the same time by the time COVID happened.
They messed up on every turn.
MS Teams did become the standard in a lot of places now
I have to use Teams for work and it is absolute dog shit.
Why? My experience is the opposite.
I never said it wasn’t dogshit, but Microsoft did win the corporate messenger race
I want to put Skype’s corpse on a banner and wave it around to all the software that’s currently undergoing enshittification.
MSN messenger died for Skype
Skype died for Teams
We’re not on a great trajectory here
(Yes Lync too, but everyone was pleased about that)
Teams died for Teams (New)
Teams will die for Copilot somehow.
Teams
New Teams
Teams (New)
Teams with Copilot
Copilot Teams
You missed Teams 365
365 will be dead soon enough. Long Live Office Copilot
You forgot all the Bing Chats in between.
Teams dying doesn’t sound too bad either. Just hoping the next iteration isn’t even worse
Given M$'s track record, it definitely will be worse…
Next iteration will be MSN Messenger
And MSN was so much better.
Did it die, though? Last time I had to use windows for work (shudder) the Teams app process name was lync.exe. Or was it Skype?
Either way, shit’s still around.
great, now do teams.
nobody should have to use that ugly useless piece of shit for anything.
I remember the “old” Skype, which was essential for keeping in touch with my siblings before we got cell phones. Once I got a phone, it was the end of Skype until ~2014 when I got a job where Skype for business was available. I still didn’t use it because that application would sometimes crash if you just jiggled the mouse. It became a running joke at my workplace.
Clock into work, Skype crashed.
Go to lunch, Skype crashed.
Ran out of TP at home. You guessed it. Skype crashed.
I’m 39. So I’ve been around Skype since it came out back in 2003. Since then, 22 years later I didn’t use it a single time. Never downloaded the program, app or accessed the webpage. 🤷
I used Skype a couple of times - I was talking to someone overseas. This was pre zoom. It’s interesting that they dropped the ball, they could have been zoom.
Everyone cashed out on Skype the day it was sold to eBay. Years later people are still wondering what happened to it?? The train left the station forever ago.
On one hand, having been forced to use Skype, I’m happy to see it gone. On the other hand, they somehow made it worse and called it Teams.
Please don’t confuse skype4biz and Skype. The former only borrows the name, and shares a lot of code with teams, Lync and probably netmeeting.
The latter will be missed.
Skype for business was truly awful.
A new convo instance every time I messaged the same person after a few hours of not, taking upwards of 10 minutes to sync convos between my laptop and my phone if it did at all, and the shittiest voice/video functions ever? Glad that shit died, teams seems amazing in comparison.
Rip to a real one
Wait, Skype was still around? I thought it shutdown a few years back
Mandela effect in full bloom
They screwed it up as much as possible and abandoned the P2P protocol and are now shutting it down. The behavior is like a little kid who broke a toy, it stopped working and he throws it away.
Can I guess that the American amoral capitalist company won’t have transferred my Skype credit?
I had like $9.22 remaining credit from some international calls back in 2002 I was going to use…eventually.
