[untog]

Sad thing is that Slack would be a far better fit for Microsoft, given that it's primarily business-focused. I've used Skype for work but only because it's the only option we've had, not because anyone actually wants to use it. Hangouts and Slack are so much more business-friendly.

That said, I think MS made the right call given that they already own Skype. It could be good - great, even - if they actually tried. They don't need a Slack acquisition for that, but they probably could do with rebuilding every native app they have from the ground up, every single one is awful.

[moheeb]

I don't understand why Skype is so crappy. Most Microsoft software is at the very least average, with several products being industry standards. Why is Skype so different?

[untog]

I've always assumed that the acquisition failed horribly. The apps are still the same code as pre-acquisition, and I'll bet a lot of the original developers left pretty sharpish. It's quite possible that the original codebase is an absolute train wreck, it's not as if it was ever an amazing app, after all.

I wonder if MS acquired Skype today (i.e. "The New Microsoft") whether they'd have been more successful.

[Splines]

Skype has a ton of legacy (just look at this list: http://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-computer/) - supporting that can't be easy.

WhatsApp will probably face similar problems in 5-10 years, if they want to maintain compatibility with the myriad of clients they have in the wild.

[aylons]

> WhatsApp will probably face similar problems in 5-10 years, if they want to maintain compatibility with the myriad of clients they have in the wild.

They don't. They just announced dropping support for Blackberry and S60.

[WorldMaker]

On the consumer (not "for Business") side of things, I think some of it is the long running experiment to make Skype a platform and merge said platform deeper into the broader ecosystem of apps. With Windows 10 I think we're finally starting to see some of that shake out and some of that improve.

It's very interesting seeing the seamless merger of Skype into the Messaging, People, and Phone apps in Windows 10. Having finally figured out the new Windows 10 Skype Video app I realized that I could uninstall the classic desktop app and the Windows 8 version of Skype mobile that is (weirdly) still in the Windows Store on mobile as if it is still a useful app (and in which case it is not), unlike its short-lived tablet/desktop counterpart.

You can still see some of the uneven edges: the reason I had to figure out the Skype Video app was that it is the only one that currently supports accepting or making Skype contact requests, before you can link them in People. (I presume that sort of functionality should eventually merge in the People app more directly?) Also, there's still that slight friction between traditional Skype accounts and using Microsoft accounts for Skype that I'm unsure if there will ever be a clean fix.

I think that the "Skype Video" should be named something like Videophone to better align with brand-less Messaging, Phone app names, but that's a marketing quibble.

I do like the way that SMS messaging and Skype messaging interleave in the Messaging app now. It's nice having only one app for that. I wish it supported merging in Facebook's Messenger as well, but I realize that won't happen for many, many reasons.

As for Skype for Business, I think it's been solid since its Lync-branded days. I'm curious if they can get the sort of "platform leverage" we are seeing on the consumer side of things, but it doesn't necessarily need it. If they make it more Slack-like, that could be interesting.

[abawany]

For me Skype has been great for years. Sure the Windows Store version was unusable but switching back to the regular version fixed issues for me. I saw it used at my last workplace to great savings - they used it to speak to their offshore person for free. We switched to Slack there but Skype continued to be used for voice communications.

Microsoft also owns GroupMe (www.groupme.com) and that solution has been pretty cool as well. I was surprised to find how focused Microsoft has quietly become on messaging products.

[Coding_Cat]

That doesn't sound so much as Skype being good as VOIP being good too you. Skype itself in my experience, and all those I know, has been abhorrent. Chat messages appearing out of order and once literally months later, incorrect status indicators, automatic noise cancelling messes up the volume sometimes (it seems to happen when the signal/noise plummets for a bit) forcing you to recall to get usable audio levels again, multi-platform support is a joke, having to delete %appdata% every other update in order to be able to log in, intrusive ads, a lack of audio device at startup seems to freeze up any windows audio afterwards until Skype is killed (This could be Windows itself ofc, but it's both Microsoft)...

As an aside, this is regular old Skype, I've heard it being said that "Skype for Business" is a completely different program.

[abawany]

I remember performing the periodic AppData cleanup in 2009/2010 but haven't had to do that in the last few years. It was during that time that the chat delay issues were very common as well. From my point of view, while the Microsoft takeover and remake initially brought difficulties with login, the recent versions were not too bad apart from the Windows 8 Store version mess. But that is just my experience.

While I personally don't use the chat functionality that often anymore, the few times I have used it (say when an interview was being done over Skype), it worked ok but I realize that is hardly a high-use model. I agree that other messaging solutions such as Hangouts, HipChat, Slack, GroupMe, and etc. appear to perform much more seamlessly without needing to be aware of idiosyncrasies.

[Coding_Cat]

For me their still the occasional problem. Perhaps it is related to Windows 7?

[abawany]

Unfortunately, I can't say - I use it on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, along with Android without issues. One thing I do that Skype appears to discourage is restart the application. This means don't allow it to launch on startup, I don't save my password (this is my practice with most apps), and I kill it if I know I won't need it; the latter is not practical if you need to be in constant touch with teams. I am not sure if any of this is a factor in my experience.

[Shorel]

In my experience, it happens if your computer's local time is not set up correctly.

[dceddia]

Pretty sure Skype for Business (at least on OS X) is a rebranded Lync client. In fact, on OS X, it's not even rebranded ;)

[j_koreth]

Oddly enough Skype got bad under Microsoft's ownership too

[ansjun]

Microsoft has a proven track record on buying and ruining perfectly fine startups/products. Skype, Yammer etc.

[minionslave]

Every software project is maintained by different teams, sometimes different departments. For example the Office team is managed differently from the Bing team. Just like the Visual Studio team will have a different management from the Skype one.

It is possible that the skype team has a different standard, different priorities imposed by the managers.

[CaptSpify]

Agreed that it's weird. IME, Microsoft is always best when they have healthy competition. They only get crappy when they are the monopoly, so why is it different for skype?

[mindo]

Because they bought it and as with everything they buy, they milk it until its dead.

[bad_user]

I really hate Skype, but unfortunately Skype has no alternative for group audio / video calls, with the occasional screen sharing. Hangouts seemed promising, but it's worse. But I can tell you that at our company we are giving up on Slack, but not on Skype.

> rebuilding every native app they have from the ground up, every single one is awful

On Mac OS X, which is what I use, it's acceptable. I found it to be fairly acceptable on iOS as well, though you can't rely on receiving group chat messages in time (in all honesty, I think that's a feature :)). I don't use Windows, I imagine it's fine there.

On Linux it's super awful. I have hope for the new web interface to replace my needs for a Linux client, but the web interface is awful as well. On Android last year it leaked my battery like crazy. Nowadays it's maybe better in battery usage, but I had problems with my microphone - if I mute and then un-mute, then it can happen for the mic to not recover and I have to reinitiate the call. It's super annoying.

My personal feeling is that Microsoft does not invest enough resources in these clients. On the primary platforms they always seem to be one or two bugs away from being OK. On Linux it's like the same client from 5 years ago and it still works, but it never got any love from Microsoft. So I think they simply didn't give a crap, hoping to lure people into Lync or something. Which is too bad, because Skype always had great potential, it still has.

[recursive]

Hangouts works far better for me than Skype. It just works. With skype, I struggle to even create video conversation. I remember one fateful day when I tried 4 different devices with skype installed, and had a complete failure to get any of them to work.

[bad_user]

It depends on your location I guess. I'm from Romania and travel and speak with people mostly in Europe. I've had the same failure you mention with Hangouts. And video quality was never OK whenever I tried, with frames being dropped and so on. Whereas Skype has been OK even on my mobile 3G/4G connection and I'm a heavy user.

In fairness, Skype had a couple of major network outages. Maybe you hit one of those.

[FireBeyond]

Hangouts is horrific on a Mac. It'll peg an i7 with discrete graphics at 80%+ CPU, and run at 170F for the length of the call.

[rleigh]

My group switched from Skype to Zoom (.us) a year or so back. We did try using Hangouts for a few months, but we found the browser plugin pretty terrible for pegging the CPU at 100%, even when not in use. In comparison, Zoom has vastly better video and audio quality, allows group chats with very large numbers of participants, and allows screen sharing and chat on the side.

Shame really, we used to be pretty heavy cross-platform users of Skype. But it had annoying problems with group limits and audio quality before the Microsoft acquisition, and that quality seemed to take a nosedive shortly afterward. On the positive side, there are at least better alternatives cropping up.