Skype

Skype Technologies (also known as Skype Software, Skype Communications, Skype Inc., and Skype Limited) was a telecommunications company headquartered in Luxembourg City, whose chief business was the development and marketing of the video chat and instant messaging computer software program Skype, and various Internet telephony services associated with it. Microsoft purchased the company in 2011, and it had since then operated as their wholly owned subsidiary; as of 2016, it was operating as part of Microsoft's Office Product Group. The company was a société à responsabilité limitée, or SARL, equivalent to an American limited liability company. Skype, a voice over IP (VoIP) service, was first released in 2003 as a way to make free computer-to-computer calls, or reduced-rate calls from a computer to telephones. Support for paid services such as calling landline/mobile phones from Skype (formerly called SkypeOut), allowing landlines and mobile phones to call Skype (formerly called SkypeIn and now Skype Number), and voice messaging generated the majority of Skype's revenue. eBay acquired Skype Technologies S.A. in September 2005 and in April 2009 announced plans to spin it off in a 2010 initial public offering (IPO). In September 2009, Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board announced the acquisition of 65% of Skype for $1.9 billion from eBay, valuing the business at $2.75 billion. Skype was acquired by Microsoft in May 2011 for $8.5 billion (~$11.7 billion in 2024). As of 2010, Skype was available in 27 languages and had 660 million worldwide users, an average of over 100 million active each month, and had faced challenges to its intellectual property amid political concerns by governments wishing to control telecommunications systems within their borders. In February 2025, Microsoft announced the shutdown of Skype on 5 May 2025, with the company being dissolved along with it.