Skype turned 8 years old

We are proud to announce the public release of Skype beta and the advent of P2P telephony! Skype allows everyone to experience free and unlimited high-quality voice communications over the Internet. Skype is free to download, and you can always get the latest version by clicking here .

Skype made this announcement on August 29, 2003, which means that today is its 8th birthday.

Founded by Swede Zennstrom and Danish Friis, this Luxembourg-based company with Estonian programmers was bought in 2005 by the American company eBay for $ 2.6 billion, and in 2009 it was sold to an investment group for $ 1.91 billion. Already in May of this year, it became known that Microsoft will buy Skype for 8.5 billion dollars.

Without a doubt, Skype is one of the most successful digital companies based in Europe, but it is still not very profitable. She has an excellent user base and 13% of the international call market, but despite revenue of $ 860 million last year, she suffered a loss of $ 7 million.
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Jennifer Kokin, who is responsible for social media on Skype, wrote on the company's blog:

We want to congratulate hundreds of millions of people who do great things - sharing stories, information, special moments - all over the world and in many places. These are real moments of life that matter - funny, silly, charming, caring, fascinating - all the things you love to do in Skype, especially when you are far from the people that matter most to you.

Jennifer suggested that users describe on Twitter using the hashtag #ILOVESKYPE, their favorite moments related to Skype.

What is the future of Skype? Given that it is almost already acquired by Microsoft, we can expect closer integration with third-party products. In Windows Phone Mango OS, most likely, the functionality of Skype-video calls will appear. And according to rumors Skype will soon appear on the Xbox.

Meanwhile, Skype for its eight years made this little video:



via The Next Web , Skype - The Big Blog