The history of Skype

Jasmin Morel
Jasmin Morel
May 19, 2022

Skype was conceived in the minds of its Swedish and Danish founders and was developed in 2003. Company's headquarters are situated in Luxemburg. Today, Skype belongs to Microsoft and is presented as one of Microsoft's products.

 

 

 

The company's name is derived from combining "Sky" with "Peer" and embodies its founders' intent to create a communications means aimed at end users. The skype.com domain was listed at April 23rd 2003 and not much later, at August of the same year, was its beta released to the wide public.

The company changed several ownerships as it was acquired in 2005 by eBay for a price tag of USD 2.6 BN but failed to live up to its new owners' expectations. In 2009, due to its owners' disappointment with its performances, 70% of the company returned to its original owners for a price tag of USD 1.9 BN as part of a settlement agreement signed between both parties.

As it seems, eBay erred in its estimations as over time Skype has become the most commonly used instant messaging tool in the world. This fact led Microsoft to acquire Skype in 2011 for a whopping USD 8.5 BN. Ever since then Microsoft regards Skype as one of its products and continues to put considerable resources into its ongoing development. In 2013 Microsoft had merged its Messenger software and services with Skype and ceased to market Messenger as an independent software program.

 

 

 

And so Skype has evolved from a small company into a product used on a daily basis by hundreds of millions of users worldwide.

 

And, you're done! You've learned where Skype had come from. Now it's time to find out where it's going, and more importantly, where it can take you!

Good luck!