Skype

Services

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

Business in Russia

2021: Rostec employees banned from communicating on Skype for work

As it became known in March 2021, Rostec employees were banned from communicating on Zoom, Skype and WhatsApp for work. Instead, it is proposed to use domestic products, including those developed by the state corporation itself. Read more here.

2014: Skype moves 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.

This decision was made by Microsoft management in order to concentrate IT engineers in one direction in international R&D centers, which should ultimately lead to increased efficiency and reduced costs for maintaining remote employees. Wound communication between Microsoft engineers was difficult due to the time difference, as they worked in different time zones. It is for this reason that the plan of the new strategy of the company included an issue related to the enlargement of R&D centers and the transfer of employees from^[1] to them that^[2].

The Russian office of Skype never existed, there was only a team of programmers involved in developing 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 the size of their monthly salary. The remaining programmers will be issued visas by the end of 2014, but for now 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 phone network numbers, but did not succeed.

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

• On March 29, 2012, the confectionery company Mars removed Twix video ads from Skype after it scared 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 repeat mode - without the ability to pause. Users rushed to write angry messages. "In the evening silence, I almost fell from my chair from this ad," complained one of them^[3].

Twix's advertising message did not comply with Skype's recommendations and caused inconvenience to users in Russia, an Internet service representative told Vedomosti: it was removed from the system, but some users could later see intrusive ads 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 fix the ad so that it would not annoy anyone.

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

And Mail.ru Group has stopped advertising on the ICQ Internet service. Igor Ermakov, head of IM at Mail.ru Group, says that users do not perceive such advertising well - it is much more effective to monetize the audience using 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 creating Qik is located in Zelenograd^[4]

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

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

2010: Mobile operators in Russia demand regulation of Skype

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 regulation of the service. "^[4]

Skype in Russia needs state regulation - this 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.

The head of the department for the development of products and services of MTS Pavel Roitberg made a tough demand to study the activities of Skype in Russia from the point of view of antimonopoly legislation and legislation in the field of communications. His theses did not differ too much from the harsh assessments of VoIP telephony that sounded 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 the telecommunications infrastructure, and providing service at low prices, VoIP operators "parasitize on other people's networks," and as a result of their activities, revenues of traditional telecom operators fall. He believes that the market needs to develop rules for Skype and other VoIP services. As an example of such rules, he cited the practice of the Vodafone operator, which either blocks access to VoIP operators on its network, or provides it for a fee. Earlier, Megafon made similar theses, which later launched its own analogue of Skype.

The offensive of VoIP services on the position of traditional voice operators is a global trend. According to Reutberg, if in 2007 VoIP services occupied only 2% of global Internet traffic, then in 2008 this figure increased to 10%, last year, according to preliminary estimates, it grew to 15%, and in 2010 it could rise to 20%.

Interestingly, despite the clear displeasure of traditional signalmen, the Federal Antimonopoly Service states that there are no complaints about the work of Skype. The FAS has not yet received any complaints or petitions about Skype's activities in Russia, "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 cellular workers: "at the FAS expert council, they announced figures of hundreds of millions and even billions of rubles of losses."

Long-distance operators really have reason for excitement. Russian prospects for "voice on IP," according to forecasts of 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 operators will exceed 20% 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 were estimated by Rostelecom 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 came to the conclusion that the service does not violate Russian antimonopoly legislation. However, Dmitry Rutenberg did not rule out that in the absence of claims from the antimonopoly 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. Studying the work of Skype "has not yet risen above the level of department leaders," a source in the Ministry of Communications told CNews.

History

2018: Skype switches to corporate customers and loses ordinary users

Since the purchase of Skype in 2011, Microsoft has been systematically reorienting it to corporate customers. Ordinary users are unhappy with the changes in the once most popular online call service and are switching 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 the service was updated in the summer of 2017. People began to complain that the application had 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 been systematically reorienting it to corporate clients

Well-known blogger Brian Krebs said in his Twitter account in early 2018 that the redesign was the worst in the history of Skype, and that the latest version of the application is a complete 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 expressions, he wrote on Twitter that Microsoft made "first-class shit" out of Skype, and promised never to use the app again.^[6]

Microsoft considers criticism exaggerated. In an interview with the publication, Skype general manager Lori Wright said that the redesign was indeed radical, and that the company was preparing for negativity. But as time passed, the reaction faded, and now "users no longer feel hate," 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 falling popularity of the service. According to them, at none of the corporate events in 2017 did they 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 asked for help in wiretapping suspects in the case of the Armenian criminal group^[8].

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

Wiretapping of members of an Armenian criminal group that used the services of a 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, since the country's authorities saw violations of laws in this service.

At the same time, Skype is not blocked in the PRC, the service can still be used by people who downloaded the program earlier. You can't only download Skype client apps from official app stores like the App Store.

Skype app disappears from App Store in China

We were told in the Ministry of Public Security (Ministry of Public Security) that a number of applications for voice communication via the Internet do not comply with local legislation, so we removed them from the App Store in China, "the Reuters representative told the agency. Apple

Those apps, including Skype, remain available in other countries, she said.

In addition to the App Store, the Skype app has disappeared from the Android catalogs that China's Tencent Holdings and Qihoo 360 Technology are developing. The Google Play portal does not work in the Celestial Empire.

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

Months before the ban, Skype was blocked in China by  WhatsApp. Also in the country is blocking 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 activities on the Internet. IT companies and organizations operating in China call the restrictions in force in the state too strict and greatly affecting 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 a criminal court in Belgium after the Internet telephony service refused to assist investigators in investigating the crime, Reuters reports, citing a CNews court spokesman^[10].

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

2012: Cisco tries to cancel Skype sale to Microsoft

On February 15, 2012, Cisco decided to appeal the conclusion of the European Commission, which approved the deal to acquire Skype video conferencing service by Microsoft, stating that the regulator should require Microsoft to maintain standards of interaction with other platforms.

In May 2011, Microsoft announced plans to buy Skype, and in October of the same 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 video conferencing products group, wrote in a blog post that the company plans to appeal to the Supreme Court of the European Union against the decision of the European Commission.

Cisco is not against 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 video conferencing software providers do, it will prevent users from making 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 (Session Initiation Protocol) standard. This was reported to Computerworld by a trusted source on condition of anonymity. He also added that users of video conferencing solutions from Cisco and other vendors will not be able to call users who use Microsoft-Skype other than through an expensive gateway.

The source of the publication said that Cisco was negotiating with Microsoft on the obligations of inter-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 deal and expires this week.

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

On the day Cisco announced its appeal, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer 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 apply to combine and expand both the consumer and corporate product portfolios. "Skype will help expand all of our assets, whether it's Lync for companies and organisations or Xbox Live for consumers. Skype is what will really connect all our devices, this is an ordinary 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 Skype, it became known to Reuters. Anonymous Reuters experts estimated a possible Skype deal with Google or Facebook at $3-4 billion. The talks could be related to Skype's delayed IPO. The release of the IP telephony service on the stock exchange was postponed to the second half of 2011. According to experts, the initial placement 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 for aQuantitative in May 2007. The amount of the transaction also includes Skype debts. The fact that the deal took place was already confirmed by GigaOm and the Wall Street Journal.

Start displaying ads to users

In March 2011, advertising began to be shown to Skype users in the USA, Great Britain and Germany. An advertising banner appeared in the main window of Skype for Windows. The first advertisers were Groupon, Universal Pictures and Visa. When issuing ads, the user's location, age, gender and other data that are not personal are taken into account.

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 in 2010 amounted to $7 million - compared to a loss of $418 million a year earlier. The published document reports that the main source of Skype's income is paid calls that service users make outside of it - to mobile and landline phones. This source forms 86% of all revenue.

At the end of 2010, the monthly active audience of Skype amounted to 145 million users - compared to the end of 2009, this figure 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 in Skype increased from 474 million to 663 million.

The company ended the year with a staff of 911 employees - 178 more than the end of 2009. In January 2010, the company completed the acquisition of the 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 accounted for 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 named 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 executive at Cisco Systems, as chief executive officer of the company. Bates replaced Josh Silverman, 42, who had worked for the company since 2008^[4].

According to the information provided in the official announcement, Bates recently worked as the chief manager of Cisco's division for work with large enterprises, small and medium-sized businesses. In this position, he was responsible for the activities of 12.5 thousand employees (12 times more in comparison with Skype). The annual turnover of his unit was approximately $20 billion.

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

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

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

IPO filing, Cisco tries to buy Skype

In August 2010, it became known that he Skype had filed an application for registration with the IPO Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). USA According to the filed documents, the company plans to raise up to $100 million during the initial placement of shares. The number of shares to be tendered, as well as the level of prices for Skype shares, has not yet been determined.

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

1st half: Revenue $406.2 million, profit $13 million

Skype revenue in the first half of 2010 amounted to $406.2 million against $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. The 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 charges for calls in 3G networks

In May 2010, Skype Limited announced its intention to charge an additional fee for calls on 3G networks, simultaneously with the release of Skype 2.0 for iPhone. It adds to the existing ability to make calls over Wi-Fi the ability to make them over mobile networks, using third-generation technologies. It was planned that this option would be free only until August 2010.

Later in July 2010, Skype Limited changed its position on VoIP calls over 3G networks and from now on no longer plans to charge an additional fee for them. The purpose of this solution is a more affordable connection that allows 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 the Skype client for the iPhone. As for the new version of Skype for iPhone - 2.0.1 - its main innovation is support for multitasking. Now Skype can be left running in the background by switching to other applications. At the same time, it remains possible to receive calls and instant messages received by Skype while the application is running in the background, as well as when the smartphone is blocked. It also became possible to continue talking on Skype, moving on to using another application.

In order to understand whether this solution has real advantages, Ars Technica calculated the amount of traffic consumed when making a Skype + 3G call. As it turned out, during a minute conversation, 660KB of data was transmitted over the uplink and downlink. Next, to buy a minimum package with prepaid 200 MB of data, which is offered by the American operator AT&T, the subscriber needs to connect to the tariff plan with a monthly fee of $40 and 400 minutes on. To this, you need to add another $15 for the package itself, which will allow you to talk on Skype for another 300 minutes. Thus, in comparison with the cost of regular voice communication Skype + 3G is really cheaper, but only those who talk for more than 400 minutes a month will be able to take advantage of this advantage.

For Russian users, there is no such benefit due to the cheapness of voice communication. For example, MTS offers a packet with traffic of 200 MB for 450 rubles, which approximately corresponds to the AT&T tariff. In this situation, the cost of a minute of Skype + 3G will be one and a half rubles. Compared to the operator's existing tariff plans, this is expensive. For example, the cost of a connection minute in the "Many calls +" tariff plan is 59 kopecks. from the sixth minute per day. It should be borne in mind that the calculations for Skype are given for calls between its users, and in the case of a connection with operator numbers, 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 ability to make calls in Internet telephony programs (including Skype) through mobile networks, thus limiting the ability to work only via Wi-Fi. The operator explained this step by the fact that Skype allegedly creates an undesirable load on its network. Without meeting this requirement, applications did not receive approval for publication in the App Store. However, this practice soon interested the Federal Communications Commission, after which AT&T refused restrictions, according to analysts, due to the unwillingness to share revenue with VoIP telephony operators.

Miles Flint named head of the company

In January 2010, Skype Technologies announced the appointment of Miles Flint as head of the company. Prior to that, Flint served as chief executive of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. In addition to directly managing Skype, the 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.

In a statement, Skype said Miles Flint would work closely with the system's two founders, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, as well as Ebay chief executive 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 Walkman and Cyber-Shot phone lines. He has been associated with Silver Lake since 2008.

Simultaneously with the appointment of the president of the company in Skype, his direct deputy was appointed, which was 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% stake in Skype to funds led by Silver Lake

In April, eBay representatives announced plans to separate Skype from the main company. At the same IPO  time, plans were announced for 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 that included venture capital funds Silver Lake, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board. The transaction amounted to $1.9 billion, its completion is planned in the fourth quarter of 2009 . Based on the announced amount, the entire Skype was valued at $2.75 billion.

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

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

2008: World's largest international voice operator with 8% share

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%.

As of the end of 2008 , there were 405 million registered Skype users worldwide. The number of users in 2008 compared to 2007 increased by 47 %.

The company's revenue in 2008 amounted to 551 million, dollars USA which is 44% more than a year earlier.  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

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

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

Notes