Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011 but it is now going to kill it altogether after a few months. The software giant has announced that gadgets running certain versions of operating system, be it Windows, Android or iOS, will not be able to access the app early next year.
Microsoft had said in July that it will stop Skype support for older apps, citing that it is moving to mobile-friendly cloud architecture. It said that moving to cloud will not only bring new features like mobile group video calling, Skype Translator and Skype Bots but also improve existing features like file sharing and video messaging.
However, the company has now said that Skype will be killed early next year. It has announced that the app support for Windows RT, Mac OS X 10.6 and below, Windows Phone 8, Windows Phone 8.1, Android 4.0.2 and below, and iOS 7 and below will be stopped from October but will "continue to work (possibly with some limitations) until early 2017" by which time moving Skype calling to the cloud is expected to be completed.
The move will affect 80 percent of Windows Phone users, as a large number of people use handsets running Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8.1 operating system. It will also affect Windows RT, Android and iOS users.
To have access to the latest versions of Skype, one has to upgrade OS, like iOS 8 or higher, Mac OS X 10.9 or higher, and Android 4.0.3 or higher.
