Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Online video calling.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I think the one who started it all, if you will,
is well hanging it up. Mike Dubuski, ABC News Technology
reporter is joining us now and Mike, welcome to the show.
How you doing brother? Well Dad gonet, there it goes again. Okay,
oh hey guys, Oh sorry about that.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Good lord.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
These phones it's about communications technology. Can't even get the
button right.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Come on, man, we're.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
On Skype, guys. That would have solved so much problem.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Well we were, but it's dead now, so that wouldn't
help us. I guess right.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
The big question about the Skype story is will anyone notice?
Speaker 4 (00:39):
That is a good question, although Microsoft says still about
thirty six million people use Skype every day, so it
still does get used. And for their part, Microsoft, which
of course owned Skype, says that anyone who still has
an account can use those credentials to sign into what
they're pushing people to now, which is Microsoft Teams. That's
(00:59):
their workplace software. It also has video calling capabilities in it,
but also a whole bunch of other stuff as well. Basically,
from Microsoft's perspective, they had kind of two of the
same type of products, and one was a lot newer
one they had a lot more staffing and focus on,
so they're trying to push people over to that as
opposed to Skype, which is, you know, kind of the
(01:20):
end of an era, though you know, it is sort
of a shade of what it once was. Skype was
very important, especially in the early days of video calling
and online communication.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Hey, well that so what you kind of just pointed out.
You log in or whatever, so it automatically defaults.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
To Teams, the free version of Teams. Yeah, and Microsoft
says that all of your contacts will transfer over and
chat history and that sort of thing, So they say
it's actually not going to be a huge transition for
a lot of people. But even still, you know, people
really did rely on Skype for you know, specifically dialing
phone numbers and using that over the internet in enough
(02:00):
just to pull the curtain back a little bit here, guys,
Sometimes when I'm doing one of these calls with your station,
for example, I like to call through Skype because I
can put myself on a nicer microphone. But now you
know that that capability is a little bit harder to
do when you're you know, trying to connect on the phone.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
So what what led to this.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
They just didn't want to keep up with technology or
advance and so it's kind of become a dinosaur.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Of sort, sir.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Yeah, there's a couple different reasons to point to here
for Skype's demise. A lot of it comes back to
the fact that Skype didn't really innovate under Microsoft. Skype
has been around since two thousand and three. For a
brief period of time, they were owned by eBay in
the mid two thousands, and then Microsoft bought them in
twenty eleven for eight point five billion dollars, which at
the time was huge. It was the biggest acquisition that
(02:46):
Microsoft had ever made, and it really pointed to exactly
how excited people were about the future of video calling
in the twenty tens. But now more than ten years later,
Skype kind of looks the same as it did ten
fifteen years ago, right. There were some features that were added,
you know, the styling of it kind of changed over time,
but for the most part, the functionality was largely the same.
(03:09):
And when you know, add to the fact that, like
there were a lot of other competitors that entered the fray,
namely Zoom, but also FaceTime, which is baked into all
Apple devices or most Apple devices, you know, services like
Slack and Discord, which are not you know, necessarily video
first started to bake in video capabilities, and Microsoft Teams
(03:33):
existed internally within Microsoft. So a couple different factors here,
you know, kind of culminated to point to the death
of Skype here, But a lot of it just seems
to be the fact that they didn't really change with
the times, and there's a lot of other options out
there now. So why would you jump over to Slack
when you can just start a video call or Skype,
(03:53):
I should say, when you can just start a video
call within the app that you're already using.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
So if you try to use Skype right now, like
we hung up in idea, it's it's not there.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
It's no longer there.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
It may be there for the rest of the day,
but from what we understand, like today's the day when
it's like shutting down. Although we had an interesting conversation
in the newsroom earlier today it's like what do you
do if you like, are on a Skype call at
like eleven fifty nine fifty nine tonight, Like are they
going to kick you off? Like what's the deal. There
so a couple of questions exactly how they're going to
sunset Skype, but for the most part, you know, starting tomorrow,
(04:25):
let's say, and you try to log onto Skype, it's
going to be a team's call.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
That's too funny, Mike.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Mike Dubuski, ABC News Technology reporter, Mike, thanks for this
pretty interesting man, as we're moving on from older stuff
and getting into the newer stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
But thanks, brother, appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Of course. Guys, take care all right, see ya.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
You know what it is, I think you with Skype.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
You can't like put those little mustache like the little
mustache graphic on somebody day.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
You have to have that.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, Well, the Skype's like, we are not offering that.
It's gotta be a little more serious. We're not messing
with that.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
During COVID, when the Google guy or who was he,
some corporate execut they would on a zoom call and
he did the call as a cat because he couldn't
get the filter off. That was stupid.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
That's what I love. I think that's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
And my guess is, seriously, Skype was like, we're not
adding nuts.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Now. Look, I don't know that they didn't or did
at it.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
But I just thought that's an interesting angle if they're like, yeah,
we're not gonna move.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And I don't know how how.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Involved that would be from their side to allow that
if in fact, it's not part.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Of what you can use right now.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
But let me tell you there are probably a lot
of people who use that type of function. I never
it's FaceTime for me because if you don't have if
you don't have Apple, if you don't have an iPhone
or whatever, the Apple device, I don't even do that.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
With Skype was buggy to begin with. Uh glitches. Yeah,
I used it back in the early two thousands.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Oh that's when it was pretty new two thousand and three,
he was saying.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
But it just you know, freezes and things like that.
It just wasn't what it was cut out to be.
And then you know, not only did they not innovate
the technology, they didn't innovate their marketing. They let people
forget about them, and you know, along comes Zoom and teams,
good teams. I'm not a big fan of teams.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So far.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I need probably a whole day to sit down and
work with that because I'm I haven't been a big
fan so far. Even the Google app. Google has a
video call app as well, which it's a freebie, and
it works far better than my memories of Skype, So
I'm not surprised. It's it's being put to bed.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Well, the glitchy part and all that is going to
be infrastructure stuff that they you got to spend the
money to keep up with that. If you're gonna you're
gonna keep pace with everybody else.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
What are they going to do now on Coast to
Coast though, because don't they have if you're using Skype
call one aid. Yeah, I have to redo that the
whole recording now.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Then I hook the guy who voiced that one originally
because he might be gone now.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
That would be twenty two years ago he could. So
you know, it's like if you're if you're using teams
West of the Rockies.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Yeah, little known fact that Coast to Coast is on
for six hours.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
The first hour is just the numbers doesn't actually start.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Till oneom bomom.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Remember that you've got male guy, yeah, story from him
a few months ago. He made like what two hundred
and fifty dollars or something.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Oh yeah, and talk about the deal of a lifetime.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
You never had to re record it. Well, yeah, they
just used it into the ground for two hundred and
fifty bucks