Skype
Photo credit: Logo: Skype, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The free app that made video-calling normal, with its blue logo and unmistakable ringtone bloop. Launched in 2003, Skype connected long-distance friends and family over early broadband — and became a verb before Microsoft bought it.
Skype launched on August 29, 2003, created by Niklas Zennström of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark together with a team of Estonian developers — Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, Jaan Tallinn, and Toivo Annus — who had earlier worked on the Kazaa file-sharing software. Skype reused a peer-to-peer approach to route voice calls cheaply over the internet, and later added the video calling it became famous for.
Free computer-to-computer calls and low-cost calls to phones made Skype a staple for long-distance relationships, students abroad, and remote work in an era of spreading broadband; 'to Skype' someone became a verb. eBay bought the company in September 2005 for around $2.5 billion, then sold a majority stake to a group of investors in 2009.
Microsoft acquired Skype in May 2011 for $8.5 billion — its largest acquisition at the time — and folded it into its products, with concurrent users peaking above 50 million in early 2013. As Microsoft pushed Teams and rivals like FaceTime, WhatsApp, and Zoom took over, Skype faded, and Microsoft finally retired it in May 2025.
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