Skype

Services

• Skype (VoIP service)
• Skype for Business (formerly Microsoft Lync) (closed in 2017)

Business in Russia

2014: Skype transfers its Zelenograd programmers to the Czech Republic

Microsoft plans to liquidate its Skype development center, located in Moscow Zelenograd, and transfer some Russian employees to Prague.

Microsoft management came to this decision in order to concentrate IT engineers engaged in one direction in international R & D centers, which should ultimately lead to increased efficiency and lower costs for maintaining remote employees. Early communication between Microsoft engineers was difficult due to the time difference, since they worked in different time zones. For this reason, the new strategy of the company included a question related to the consolidation of R & D centers and the transfer of employees from remote^[1] to them^[2].

Skype's Russian office never existed, there was only a team of programmers involved in development for its needs. In total, there were about 100 people, but only a third gave their consent to move to the Czech Republic. Those who refused further cooperation received severance pay equal to 6 times their monthly salary. The remaining programmers will be issued visas by the end of 2014, and in the meantime they continue to work in the same Zelenograd office.

2012:22 million users in Russia

Skype is the most popular Internet text messaging and telephony service in runet. According to the analytical company ComScore, in December 2012 it had 22.4 million users - three times more than the nearest competitor - ICQ. For a long time, Skype hoped to make money on paid calls to telephone network numbers, but was not successful.

• In Russia, advertising in the service appeared on February 21, 2012 - the Samsung banner for the first day was shown 8 million times. Advertising the phone in Skype was successful, says Alexei Vasilenko, director of procurement in non-television media of the Vivaki Russia advertising group: the group is going to continue to advertise in Skype.

• On March 29, 2012, the Mars confectionery company removed Twix video advertising from Skype after it frightened and angered Russian users of the service. The Twix video appeared on Skype on March 28 in the evening, it went at full volume and in constant replay mode - without the opportunity to pause. Users rushed to write angry messages. "In the evening silence, I almost fell from my chair from this ad," one of them complained^[3].

Twix's advertising message did not comply with Skype's recommendations and caused inconvenience to users in Russia, a representative of the Internet service told Vedomosti: it was removed from the system, but some users could later see obsessive advertising stored in the memory of their computers. Representatives of Mars and Skype on the website of the Internet service apologized to users and promised to correct the ad so that it did not annoy anyone.

• RuTube CEO Mikhail Ilyichev says that in terms of audience size, Skype is comparable to niche resources championat.com or vedomosti.ru, but advertising on the service may be in demand due to consumer targeting. An employee of a Russian Internet company believes that in the first year Skype will earn no more than $2-3 million on advertising.

And Mail.ru Group stopped advertising in the Internet service ICQ. The head of the IM direction of Mail.ru Group, Igor Ermakov, says that users do not perceive such ads well - it is much more effective to monetize the audience with the help of gaming and other additional services, as the Chinese company Tencent does.

2011: Skype acquired Russian startup Qik

In January 2011, it became known that Skype acquired the Qik service, which is a hybrid of video hosting, video chat and a social network for mobile devices. The ideological inspirer and one of the founders of the service is a Russian, and the team that creates Qik is located in Zelenograd^[4]

The Skype service announced the acquisition of Qik, a fast-growing video hosting and social network. This deal was expected from the end of 2010, but Skype representatives announced its implementation only at CES in January 2011.

Details of the transaction were not announced, however, according to a source in Qik, Skype acquired a 100% stake in Qik, and the amount of the transaction turned out to be more than the $100 million predicted by observers. According to Neil Stevens, vice president of consumer products at Skype, the deal will be completed in January 2011.

Among the sellers of their shares of Qik is the Russian investment fund Almaz Capital Partners. His managing partner, Alexander Galitsky, tweeted that this was the fund's first exit from invested assets.

2010: Mobile operators in Russia require Skype regulation

In October 2010, MTS supported the concerns of its competitors from the "Big Three" mobile operators regarding the activities of Skype in Russia and advocated the regulation of the service. "^[4]

Skype in Russia needs state regulation - such a conclusion is contained in the working documents of the round table on the "market for alternative voice services in Russia." The discussion of this issue took place at the initiative of the Commission on Natural Monopolies of the Federation Council.

Pavel Roitberg, Head of the Department for the Development of MTS Products and Services, made a tough demand to study Skype's activities in Russia from the point of view of antitrust and communications legislation. His theses did not differ too much from the tough assessments of VoIP telephony that were heard at the hearings on Skype's activities in the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in 2009.

The representative of MTS said that, without investing their own funds in telecommunications infrastructure, and providing service at low prices, VoIP operators "parasitize on other people's networks," and as a result of their activities, the incomes of traditional telecom operators fall. He believes that the market needs to develop rules of operation for Skype and other VoIP services. As an example of such rules, he cited the practice of the Vodafone operator, who either blocks access to VoIP operators in his network, or provides it for a fee. Earlier, Megafon spoke with similar theses, which subsequently launched its own analogue of Skype.

The advent of VoIP services in the position of traditional voice carriers is a global trend. According to Roitberg, while in 2007 VoIP services occupied only 2% of global Internet traffic, in 2008 this figure increased to 10%, last year, according to preliminary estimates, it increased to 15%, and in 2010 it can rise to 20%.

Interestingly, despite the obvious displeasure of traditional signalmen, the Federal Antimonopoly Service notes the absence of complaints about the work of Skype. The FAS has so far "received neither complaints nor petitions for Skype's activities in Russia," as Dmitry Rutenberg, head of the transport and communications control department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, told CNews.

According to him, VoIP services in general and Skype in particular pose a much greater threat to long-distance operators than to cell phones: "at the FAS expert council, they voiced figures of hundreds of millions and even billions of rubles of losses."

Long-distance operators really have cause for excitement. Russian "voice on IP" prospects, according to telecom market analysts, may be even less pleasant for traditional domestic operators than world ones. So, according to J'son & Partners, the share of VoIP in the total traffic of long-distance carriers will exceed 20% mark already in 2010, in the next it will step over 30%, and in 2012 - over 40%.

Last year's losses of Russian operators from Skype in the summer of 2010, Rostelecom estimated at 6.7 billion rubles, and suggested that in 2010 this amount could amount to 10.5 billion rubles.

At the same expert council, having considered the activities of Skype, the FAS concluded that the service does not violate Russian antitrust laws. However, Dmitry Rutenberg did not rule out that in the absence of complaints from the antitrust authority, claims against Skype may arise from the industry regulator or tax authorities.

Meanwhile, within the walls of the industry regulator, the activities of VoIP operators in Russia have not yet become a priority problem. The study of the work of Skype "has not yet risen above the level of heads of departments," a source in the Ministry of Communications told CNews.

History

2021: Rostec employees banned from communicating on Skype at work

As it became known in March 2021, Rostec employees were forbidden to communicate in Zoom, Skype and work WhatsApp. Instead, it is proposed to use domestic products, including those developed by the state corporation itself. More details here.

2018: Skype switched to corporate customers and loses ordinary users

Since the purchase of Skype in 2011, Microsoft has systematically reoriented it to corporate customers. Ordinary users are unhappy with the changes in the once most popular online call service and are moving to competing platforms. This was reported in early May 2018 by Bloomberg.

According to the publication, a sharp surge in negative user reviews about Skype occurred after updating the service in the summer of 2017. People began to complain that the application has become complex and less intuitive. Other frequent complaints include poor communication quality and high power consumption of the mobile version of Skype.

Since the purchase of Skype in 2011, Microsoft has systematically reoriented it to corporate customers

The famous blogger Brian Krebs on the Twitter account at the beginning of 2018 said that redesign became the worst for the history Skype and that the latest version of the application - continuous misunderstanding. The message was supported by numerous retweets and likes by other users.^[5]

An even sharper assessment in March 2018 was given by technology investor and columnist Om Malik. Not shy in terms, he wrote on Twitter that Microsoft made Skype "first-rate shit," and promised never to use the application again.^[6]

Microsoft considers criticism exaggerated. The general manager of Skype Laurie Wright (Lori Wright) said in an interview to the edition that redesign really was radical and that the company was preparing for a negative. But after time, the reaction came to naught, and now "users no longer feel hatred," she added.

Meanwhile, the corporation has not disclosed data on the number of Skype users since 2016, when it was at the level of 300 million. Analysts suspect that the indicator, at best, has not changed, and two former Microsoft employees in an interview with Bloomberg said that the company is feeling panic due to the decline in popularity of the service. According to them, at none of the corporate events in 2017, they did not hear that the figure of more than 300 million was called in statistics about Skype users.^[7]

2017

Refusal to cooperate with the Belgian police will cost Skype 30 thousand euros

Skype Technologies in Belgium was fined 30 thousand euros. The company refused the police, who applied for help in listening to suspects in the case of an Armenian criminal group^[8].

The Antwerp court rejected Skype Technologies's appeal and upheld a previous decision to impose penalties for refusing to cooperate with Belgian law enforcement agencies.

The audition of members of the Armenian criminal group that used the services of the messenger was required by law enforcement officers during the investigation of the next case. After the company's management refused, the police went to court.

Ban on downloading mobile versions in China

In November 2017, the mobile version of Skype was banned in China, as the country's authorities saw violations of laws in this service.

At the same time, Skype is not blocked in China, people who downloaded the program earlier can still use the service. You can only download Skype client applications in official app stores, such as the App Store.

Skype app disappeared from App Store in China

We were informed by the Ministry of Public Security that a number of applications for voice communication over the Internet do not comply with local law, so we removed them from the App Store in China, "an Apple representative told Reuters.

According to her, these applications, including Skype, remain available in other countries.

In addition to the App Store, the Skype application disappeared from Android directories developed by Chinese Tencent Holdings and Qihoo 360 Technology. The Google Play portal does not work in the Middle Kingdom.

According to Reuters, a heated discussion has unfolded on the Weibo social network about the disappearance of Skype from the App Store. Many users criticize the authorities for blocking access to foreign services, despite the existence of similar products developed in China.

A few months before Skype was banned in China,  WhatsApp was blocked. Also in the country there is a blocking on applications such as Gmail, Facebook and Twitter.

Beijing explains the ban on foreign Internet services by measures to protect the privacy of citizens and prevent terrorist activity on the Internet. IT companies and organizations operating in China call state restrictions too strict and strongly influencing their business. To work in China, foreign companies are forced to work closely with local businesses or sell their Chinese assets altogether, as Amazon did in November 2017. You can find out more about Internet censorship in China here.^[9]

2015: Criminal prosecution launched against Skype

Skype, a subsidiary of Microsoft, was summoned to criminal court in Belgium after the Internet telephony service refused to assist investigators in investigating the crime, Reuters reports citing a representative of the^[10] court^[11].

According to the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, investigators asked Skype for access to correspondence and data about the calls of two suspected Armenian citizens who in 2012 committed a number of crimes related to the sale of illegal and stolen goods. However, Skype refused to do this, citing the fact that it is not a Belgian telecommunications operator, and therefore local law does not apply to the company.

2012: Cisco Tries to Cancel Skype Sale to Microsoft

On February 15, 2012, Cisco decided to appeal the European Commission opinion approving the deal to acquire Skype video conferencing service by Microsoft, stating that the regulator should require Microsoft to maintain standards for interacting with other platforms.

In May 2011, Microsoft announced plans to buy Skype, and in October of that year received the consent of the European Commission to conduct the transaction. Recently, Microsoft executives announced that the company intends to more closely integrate the voice capabilities of Skype software, its text and video functionality with the Microsoft Lync group interaction system.

On February 15, 2012, Martin De Beer, senior vice president of Cisco's teamwork and videoconferencing products group, wrote in a blog post that the company plans to appeal to the EU Supreme Court against the European Commission's decision.

Cisco is not opposed to the merger, but requires the European Commission to oblige Microsoft to fulfill a number of conditions, including support for open standards. If Microsoft does not support them, as other providers of video conferencing software solutions do, this will not allow users to make video calls as easily as voice calls. According to De Beer, this can suppress competition and innovation in the VoIP industry .

In particular, Microsoft and Skype do not plan to use the popular H.264 video codec or the SIP standard (Session Initiation Protocol). This was reported to Computerworld by a trusted source on condition of anonymity. He also added that users of Cisco video conferencing solutions and other vendors will not be able to call users who use the Microsoft-Skype system other than through an expensive gateway.

The source of the publication said that Cisco was negotiating with Microsoft on the obligations of cross-platform interaction and did not agree on anything, and filing an appeal against the decision of the European Commission became possible only after the approval of the transaction and expires this week.

Microsoft representatives note, on the contrary, that the European Commission conducted a thorough review of the acquisition transaction, in which Cisco actively participated, and approved the 36-page transaction without any conditions. "We are confident that the commission's decision will be unchanged," Microsoft said in a statement.

On the day of Cisco's court appeal filing, Microsoft CFO Peter Klein announced that the company plans to actively and widely integrate Skype's capabilities into its product line. He introduced Skype as a product that Microsoft will use to combine and expand both the consumer and enterprise product portfolios. "Skype will help expand all of our assets, be it Lync for companies and organizations or Xbox Live for consumers. Skype is what will really connect all our devices, this is a regular scenario, "said Klein. He also added that Skype plays a significant role in Microsoft's strategy for cloud services.

2011

Skype sold to Microsoft for $8.5 billion. Facebook and Google offered $3-4 billion

In April 2011, Facebook and Google independently began negotiations on the acquisition of the Skype service, it became known to Reuters. Anonymous Reuters experts estimated Skype's possible deal with Google or Facebook at $3-4 billion. Negotiations may be related to Skype's deferred IPO. The release of the IP-telephony service on the exchange was postponed to the second half of 2011. According to experts, the initial offering of shares can bring Skype about $1 billion in revenue.

In May 2011, Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion. This is the first serious acquisition of the company since the purchase of Greenfield Online for $486 million in August 2008. Moreover, this is the largest acquisition of the company, which broke the company's record - $6 billion per aQuantive in May 2007. The transaction amount also includes Skype debts. The fact that the deal took place has already been confirmed by GigaOm and the Wall Street Journal.

Start showing ads to users

In March 2011, a demonstration of advertising to Skype users in the USA, Great Britain and Germany began. The ad banner appeared in the main window of Skype for Windows. The first advertisers were Groupon, Universal Pictures and Visa. Announcements take into account the user's location, age, gender and other data that are not personal.

2010

Revenue growth by 20% to $860 million, loss of $7 million

The company's net revenue in 2010 increased by 20% compared to 2009 - from $719 million to $860 million. Profit before taxes, interest and depreciation (EBITDA) increased by 43% - from $185 million to $264 million. Skype's net loss at the end of 2010 amounted to $7 million - compared with a loss of $418 million a year earlier. The published document reports that the main source of income of Skype is paid calls that users of the service make outside its borders - to mobile and landlines. This source forms 86% of the total revenue.

At the end of 2010, Skype's monthly active audience was 145 million users - compared to the end of 2009, this indicator increased by 38%. The number of users of the service resorting to paid services increased by 19% - from 7.3 million to 8.8 million subscribers. The average income from one such subscriber was $97. Over the past year, the number of users registered with Skype increased from 474 million to 663 million.

The company ended the year with a staff of 911 employees - 178 more compared to the end of 2009. In January 2010, the company completed the acquisition of Qik video service, as a result of which 63 Qik employees joined Skype.

In 2010, Skype users spoke 207 billion minutes via voice and video. In Q4, video calls occupied approximately 42% of the total Skype-to-Skype communication time. In addition, during the specified period, Skype users sent more than 176 million SMS messages through the service.

Tony Bates appointed CEO of the company

In October 2010, the board of directors of Skype S.A. announced the appointment of 43-year-old Tony Bates, a former top manager of Cisco Systems, to the post of chief executive officer of the company. Bates replaced 42-year-old Josh Silverman, who has worked for the company since 2008^[4].

According to an official report, Bates has recently served as Cisco's chief executive officer for large, small and medium-sized businesses. In this position, he was responsible for the activities of 12.5 thousand employees (12 times more than the Skype staff). Its annual turnover was approximately $20 billion.

In addition, Bates led Cisco's service provider division, which has an annual turnover of $10 billion. While working at Cisco, the largest network equipment manufacturer, Bates was part of a group of executives who set the general course for business development.

Tony Bates has more than 20 years of experience in telecommunications and holds 9 patents. He has repeatedly been a member of the board of various technology projects, including the video exchange service YouTube, the web conference service TokBox, the network communication service BubbleMotion and the film rental site LoveFilm.

Bates will take up his duties in late October after moving from California to Luxembourg, where Skype is headquartered. Until then, CEO will be Chief Financial Officer Adrian Dillon.

Application for IPO Registration, Cisco Tries to Buy Skype

In August 2010, it became known that Skype filed an IPO with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to the submitted documents, the company plans to raise up to $100 million during the initial offering of shares. The number of shares that will be put up for auction, as well as the level of prices for Skype shares, has not yet been determined.

The TechCrunch blog in August, citing "reliable sources," reports that Cisco Skype is trying to acquire Skype before it completes the placement process with an initial offer. Such a purchase would cost Cisco a huge amount, since through an IPO in Skype they expect to receive $5 billion. Such an acquisition would be the main weapon of Cisco's breakthrough into the market of universal communications and collaboration, as well as consumer services. With Skype, Cisco could, for example, offer a handheld video and voice device for the consumer and possibly corporate market. The message TechCrunch notes that Skype is probably also interested in buying, Google but it cannot make Skype offers so as not to violate antitrust laws.

1st half of the year: Revenue $406.2 million, profit $13 million

Skype's revenue in the first half of 2010 was $406.2 million compared to $323.2 million for the same period in 2009. The bulk of Skype's revenue comes from allowing users to make calls to landlines and mobile phones. Profit for the first half of 2010 is only $13 million. At the same time, a significant part of this amount is interest income, and the company's operating profit amounted to only $1.4 million.

According to Skype, in the first half of 2010, its users made voice and video calls for 95 billion minutes. At the same time, 45% of this time were video calls. In addition, Skype users sent 84 million text SMS messages to other people.

Waiver of additional 3G call charges

In May 2010, Skype Limited announced its intention to charge an additional fee for calls on 3G networks in, at the same time as the release of the Skype 2.0 application for iPhone. In it, the opportunity to make calls over Wi-Fi was added to the existing opportunity to make them on mobile networks, using third-generation technologies. It was planned that this option will be free only until August 2010.

Later in July 2010, Skype Limited changed its position regarding VoIP calls over 3G networks and no longer plans to charge for them. The purpose of this solution is a more accessible connection, allowing you not to worry about the duration of the call and its cost, according to the company's official blog.

This statement is timed to coincide with the release of a new version of Skype Client for iPhone. As for the new version of Skype for iPhone - 2.0.1 - its main innovation is multitasking support. Now you can leave Skype running in a background by switching to other applications. At the same time, it is possible to receive calls and instant messages received by Skype while the application is working in the background, as well as when the smartphone is blocked. It also became possible to continue the conversation on Skype, going to use another application.

In order to understand whether this solution brings real benefits, Ars Technica calculated the amount of traffic spent when making a Skype + 3G call. As it turned out, during the minute conversation, 660 KB of data was transmitted over the upstream and downstream channels. Further, in order to purchase a minimum package with a prepaid 200 MB of data offered by the American AT & T operator, the subscriber needs to connect to the tariff plan with a monthly fee of $40 and 400 included minutes. To this you need to add another $15 for the package itself, which will allow you to talk about Skype for another 300 minutes. Thus, compared to the cost of regular voice communication, Skype + 3G is really cheaper, but only those who talk for more than 400 minutes per month can take advantage of this advantage.

For Russian users there is no such benefit due to the cheapness of voice communications. For example, MTS offers a packet with traffic of 200 MB for 450 rubles, which roughly corresponds to the AT & T tariff. With this arrangement, the cost of the Skype + 3G minute will be one and a half rubles. Compared to the existing tariff plans of the operator, this is expensive. For example, the cost of a connection minute in the tariff plan "Many calls +" is 59 kopecks from the sixth minute per day. It should be borne in mind that calculations for Skype are given for calls between its users, and if you connect to the numbers of operators, you will have to pay even more.

It is known that VoIP is a technology that mobile operators in their networks would like to see last. AT & T even imposed a ban on the possibility of making calls in Internet telephony programs (including Skype) through mobile networks, thus limiting the ability to work only through Wi-Fi. The operator explained this step by the fact that Skype allegedly creates an undesirable load on its network. Without this requirement, applications did not receive approval to publish to the App Store. However, such a practice soon interested the Federal Communications Commission, after which AT & T refused restitution, according to analysts, due to the reluctance to share revenue with VoIP telephony operators.

Miles Flint Appointed Head of Company

In January 2010, Skype Technologies announced the appointment of Miles Flint as head of the company. Prior to that, Flint served as executive director of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. In addition to directly managing Skype, 56-year-old Flint became a technical adviser to the investment fund, which at Silver Lake Partners that time was the main shareholder of Skype.

Skype said in a statement that Miles Flint will work closely with the two founders of the system - Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, as well as Ebay CEO John Donahue. Flint was president of Sony Ericsson from 2004 to 2007. It was he who at one time was behind the launch of the lines of the Walkman and Cyber-Shot phones. Associated with Silver Lake he has been since 2008.

Simultaneously with the appointment of the president of the company in Skype, his direct deputy was appointed, which became the former top manager of Thomson Reuters David Gurl. He will also lead Skype for Business, which will soon be given priority.

2009: eBay sells 56% of Skype shares to funds led by Silver Lake

In April, eBay representatives announced plans to separate Skype from the main company. At the same time, plans were announced for IPO Skype in 2010 , from which eBay expected to receive about 2  billion for the entire service. dollars USA

On September 1, eBay officially announced the sale of a 65% stake in Skype's VoIP service. The buyers were a group of investors, which included venture funds Silver Lake, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board. The transaction amounted to 1.9  billion US dollars, its completion is planned in the fourth quarter  of 2009. Based on the announced amount, the entire Skype was estimated at 2.75  billion US dollars.

After a lawsuit by the founders of the VoIP service Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the share of the group of investors was reduced to 56%, while Zennstrom and Friis received 14% of the company's shares as compensation. Another 30% of Skype are still in the hands of eBay.

After the change of ownership, Skype introduced mobile software for a number of mobile platforms, and also announced support for HD video in videoconferences.

2008: The world's largest international voice operator with a share of 8%

According to the research company TeleGeography, in 2008 Skype became the largest international voice operator  - its share of the total volume of conversations was 8%.

At the end of 2008 , there were 405  million registered Skype users in the world. The number of users   increased by 47 per cent in 2008 compared to 2007. 

The company's revenue in 2008  amounted to 551  million, dollars USA which is 44% more than a year earlier. The eBay believes that by 2011 , the company's revenue will increase to  $1 billion.

2005: eBay bought Skype for $2.6  billion 53 million users

The company eBay bought Skype for $2.6  billion, an amount called by many analysts and later recognized as the highest eBay too high. The founders of the service Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis with the first investor Howard Hartenbaum invested about $20  million in it. During the deal with eBay, Skype had 53  million users.

eBay planned to use Skype as a tool to increase efficiency in its core activities, in particular, as a convenient means of communication between its customers. However, it failed to tightly integrate the division into its core business.

Шаблон:Messaging Topic

Notes