Paul Stenhouse: On the stars going to space and why Skype is shutting down

Skype is shutting down on May 5.  
It was the OG video calling app, but now Microsoft is all in on Teams. Microsoft has developed a way for users to port their Skype account over to a free version of Teams, or to export their data. It's nice that they're making the choices and options clear. 
There's one big piece missing though - the ability to call people using phone numbers. 
This is probably a good thing.. Microsoft has multiple services - Teams, Skype, Lync - over the years that have all largely done the same thing, but are just integrated into the wider ecosystem differently. 
They bought Skype in 2011 for $8.5b - 14 years ago! 
 
Katy Perry is going to space! 
She'll be flying on Jeff Bezo's Blue Origin rocket in the next few months. She's making the trip with Jeff Bezo's fiancé - Lauren Sanchez - along with newscaster Gayle King (who is Oprah's best friend), a research scientist, a film producer and a former NASA rocket scientist.&n

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks at BE.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Skype is being shut down. It seems amazing really, given
like I was saying earlier, Skype's kind of a verb
as well as a now and you know when you're
video calling people, you skype them. Well not anymore. Our
Textbert Paul Stenhouse is here with the details. What's happening, Paul, Yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Think Zoom might have taken over that name unfortunately, which
Microsoft probably isn't too happy about because they own Skype
and they bought it Jack fourteen years ago twenty eleven.
It was eight point five billion dollars, which twenty eleven
was quite the summer of him, wasn't that? Yeah, But
it sort of came. It was a little shocking to

(00:50):
see the headline. I will admix. It's like, it feels
like it's been a bit of a name, you know,
a namestay of the technology world. Obviously people aren't using it,
maybe quite as much as they're used to, but it
really was the original video calling app. And so Microsoft
said May five shutting it down. So it gives us
what sixty odd days I think it was. They have

(01:13):
been good though, I will see this right, instead of
just pulling the pin, they've actually created some tooling to
let people either port their Skype account over to a
free version of Microsoft Teams, which is basically their play
for the future, or they're actually letting people so export
it out. And I kind of like that they've made
the choice, given people the choice, and made the options
quite clear, rather than some technology companies don't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, so what does expect wording it out mean?

Speaker 3 (01:38):
So you'll be able to take your contacts and your
type of your chats and things like that and take
it somewhere else. But Microsoft, this is kind of a
good thing for Microsoft because they have Teams, Skype and
also this old thing called Link and they all basically
do exactly the same thing. They're all like chat and video,
and so it's good that done.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Now you're kind of consolidating.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
They're consolidating, right, and it just makes things easier for people.
You know, So, is he a Skype? Is it's just
going to be Teams? Yeah, And so if you do it,
if you do have a Skype account, there is one
thing you need to know though, and this is the
thing to think that got thing that got people onto
Skype was that you could use it to make very
cheap overseas calls that yesterday. Yeah, now that feature won't

(02:18):
be being ported over to teams, not the free not
the free version anyway, so that part of it will disappear.
But otherwise you've still got your video calling and your
chat and your group chats and all that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
It is a shame to lose that, although the sense
I get is that pretty much everywhere now people are
kind of moving towards WhatsApp anyway. You know that WhatsApp
is kind of the international calling equivalent, isn't it. So
I suppose it's not the end of the world. Yeah,
interesting though, amazing just how kind of fortunes change. Tell us,
why is Katie Perry of all people going to space?

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Well, it's about who you know, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Yeah, exactly, so she she so, okay, So Blue Origin
is Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon's Rocket company. His fiance
is Laurence Sanchez. Okay, right, So Lauren decided that she
was going to take an all gaal pale kind of
trip to space. So she said to Katie Peerry.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Want to come?

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Mm hmm, okay, she's also taking along. There's a newscaster
over here on Sibbi's called Gail King, who I think
is famously known as Oprah's best friend. She's going to
a research scientist, a film producer, and a former NASA
rocket scientist. They're all going to be going with Jeff
Bezos's fiance. Lauren sends she is up in the space

(03:40):
because when your husband owns a rocket company, you just
take it for a spin. You take the rocket for
a spin. Don't you take some friends go for a
spin to.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Space as you do? Yeah? Well, yeah, nice. I'm not Yeah,
I think I'd probably be excited about a couple of
those passengers, a couple of others. I'm not too sure.
I suppose it's a pretty quick trip. Thank you, Paul.
Paul Stenhouse, our texpert.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
There for more Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.