Happy birthday Skype, you’re
10-years-old today! The path-breaking VoIP service that was born out of
the efforts by Janus Friis of Denmark and Niklas Zennström of Sweden is
celebrating its birthday today.
The company hit it big when eBay acquired the service creator for $2.5
billion in 2005. Even as cheap broadband connection became widely
available across the world, the need to connect with loved ones sitting
in other cities became more important and Skype filled this gap
perfectly. Between 2005 and 2009, Skype’s international call market
share jumped from 2.9 percent to 12 percent. Currently a total of 300
million users make two billion minutes of online video calls a day using
Skype.
Part of this success of the VoIP service can be attributed to its acquisition by Microsoft in 2011. A popular joke at that point of time said, “Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion? Why, it could have downloaded Skype for free!”
Earlier in July the company announced a massive redesign for its Android application after celebrating the 100 million downloads mark. Not just the service, but also its applications on iOS, Android and even Windows Phone seem to be doing great.
The company has spawned many competitors with its simple, yet effective calling philosophy. While Apple’s FaceTime and Google’s Hangouts are catering to a whole niche of audiences themselves, they’ll probably never be immortalised in popular-speak like 'Let’s Skype!' is.
Part of this success of the VoIP service can be attributed to its acquisition by Microsoft in 2011. A popular joke at that point of time said, “Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion? Why, it could have downloaded Skype for free!”
Earlier in July the company announced a massive redesign for its Android application after celebrating the 100 million downloads mark. Not just the service, but also its applications on iOS, Android and even Windows Phone seem to be doing great.
The company has spawned many competitors with its simple, yet effective calling philosophy. While Apple’s FaceTime and Google’s Hangouts are catering to a whole niche of audiences themselves, they’ll probably never be immortalised in popular-speak like 'Let’s Skype!' is.
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