Another Microsoft side effect: updating without asking just minutes before your call, typically to an even slower, more bloated version."Ĭhris Matyszczyk: "Skype was unbearably buggy and full of spam. A lot of people jumped ship the moment Microsoft acquired it.
May have to do with the fact they made it into bloatware. George Anadiotis: "Skype's call quality deteriorated over the years. Skype's stagnation as a product opened the market for others." Skype had changing priorities and product visions under three different owners in six years. The company was sold to eBay in 2005, then spun off to private equity and ultimately acquired by Microsoft. Larry Dignan: "Skype was hampered by corporate machinations. There's nothing to manage or worry about random people adding you as a friend." Send a link, participants join, hang up when you're done. Signed out, uninstalled, and never went back. That's also when the spam and scams started. Jason Cipriani: "I quit using Skype years ago after it turned into a messaging, VoIP and video chat app.
I asked my colleagues at ZDNet and here's what they said: What did Skype do wrong to give Zoom such an advantage?
How to transfer files during a Zoom meeting.How to share documents onscreen in a Zoom meeting.
I've used it on a variety of platforms - Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android - and they've all been headache-inducing. Skype applications have not been the most reliable apps, whether on the desktop or mobile. It really doesn't get much easier than Zoom. Zoom is about as close to that as you can get, and yet has powerful features under the hood for those who understand how to wield such power.ĭownloading Zoom is a doddle, installing it is painless, and getting people into a meeting is as simple as sending them a link. People whose ideal app would have only have one button, and that button would be pre-pressed. I've gotten all sorts of people to use it with very little friction. And I don't mean you and me here, I mean all the regular Joes and Josephines out there who don't find this so easy.Īnd Zoom really is easy to use, so much so that I'm impressed. Must read: How to prevent your Zoom meetings being Zoom-bombed (gate-crashed) by trollsįirst and foremost, Zoom is much easier to use than Skype. It soon became clear why Skype has fallen by the wayside and Zoom is, well, zooming, with three areas standing out above the rest. I had my suspicions but decided to ask both my followers on Twitter and my ZDNet family for their ideas. So, what happened to Skype? How did it fumble the digital ball so badly that we're now Zooming and not Skyping? Instead, people are turning to Zoom in by the thousands. Coronavirus: Business and technology in a pandemicįrom cancelled conferences to disrupted supply chains, not a corner of the global economy is immune to the spread of COVID-19.īut now that the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has people confined indoors and working from home, Skype, Skyping, and Skyped are oddly absent from the discussion.