It's been almost six years since Microsoft introduced Teams, which was initially focused on rivaling Slack as a communications platform for business. On the enterprise side, Microsoft was quick to replace a lot of its legacy software. Teams replaced Microsoft Classroom in Office 365 for Education plans almost immediately, and Skype for Business was replaced by 2019.

In May 2021, the company introduced personal features in Teams, and it seemed like it was poised to kill off Skype for consumers. This seemed even more obvious when, the following month, Microsoft announced Windows 11, featuring a brand new Teams integration, referred to as Chat with Microsoft Teams. Skype was no longer pre-installed in Windows 11, either. And yet, almost two years on, there's still no clear goal for Microsoft's messaging platforms.

Microsoft has a complicated history with messaging

Microsoft and Google have similar problems when it comes to messaging apps. You may remember that in the late 90s and early 2000s, Microsoft has its own messaging platform, MSN Messenger, or as it came to be known, Windows Live Messenger. I used it a lot back in the day, and I thought the app was solid. It had pretty much all the features I'd want in a messaging app at the time, including voice and video calls. It would even integrate with Windows' Remote Assistance feature if you wanted to help somebody with their computer.

Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger | Image credit: Softonic

However, in the early 2010s, Microsoft was facing stiff competition from Skype, and rather than continue to invest in its existing platform, Microsoft decided to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion. Microsoft would kill off Windows Live Messenger in 2013. Skype would also become a business brand, as Microsoft would replace Lync, its messaging and communication service for enterprise, with Skype for Business.

This happened in 2015, and around the same time, Microsoft introduced Windows 10. With Windows 10 version 1511 set to release towards the end of that year, the company introduced a completely new Skype experience. Instead of a single app, Microsoft merged the messaging aspect of Skype into the Messaging app, which included SMS messages on phones running Windows 10 Mobile (akin to Apple's iMessage). The video portion of Skype was its own app, and it was designed to look like a typical phone call on a Windows phone. Truth be told, it was the closest we ever came to a true synergy between Skype and other Microsoft products.

Windows 10 Messaging app with SKype
Image credit: Skype via MSpoweruser

This all shut down just a few months later, and Microsoft would introduce a new Skype app in 2016. That same year, it was reported that Microsoft was interested in buying Slack, but the deal ended up not going through. Instead, we got Microsoft Teams in 2017. Eventually, this replaced Skype for Business, and seemingly, the consumer version of Skype was soon to follow when Windows 11 came around. I can't help feeling that Microsoft may have found more success investing more in its existing products than constantly trying to start things over or buy out the merits of other services.

Skype isn't dead, but it should be

While there have definitely been a lot of changes with Microsoft's messaging services, at least the company was fairly consistent with killing off older services in favor of its new ones. With Skype, however, things are just confusing.

Microsoft started prioritizing Teams after it was introduced, but as Skype remained its consumer-oriented brand, some features would still make their way to Skype. For example, Microsoft would introduce Together Mode in Teams, which was added to Skype a few months later. A lot of this happened during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, where a lot of us turned to video chat services, so it made some sense for Skype to still be around.

Screenshot of a video call in Together Mode in Skype
Together Mode in Skype | Image credit: Skype

However, in 2021, Microsoft introduced Windows 11, and Teams for personal users was one of the headlining new features. Teams was now directly available on the taskbar, with messaging and calling capabilities in tow. Microsoft also stopped bundling Skype with Windows 11, so you'd have to go out of your way to install it. This should've been the end for Skype, and yet, roughly a week before Windows 11 was released, Microsoft introduced a major Skype revamp with an all-new design and features. It almost feels like the Skype team was trying to divert attention from the fact that Teams seemed set to replace it.

Skype added very little in the way of new features in the following year, and again, with Teams now officially being built into Windows 11, you might have assumed Skype was on life support. But no. Right at the tail-end of 2022, Skype decided to, yet again, introduce a major redesign, even adding a Today tab with quick access to news. And it gets worse. Just recently, Microsoft introduced the new Bing chat experience, starting on the web, and a couple of weeks later, it was added to Skype — but not to Teams. It doesn't matter how you feel about the new Bing, Skype is still integrating with other Microsoft products better than Teams does in some ways.

Various screenshots of the Skype app on mobile displaying more colorful themes, including colored headers
The latest version of Skype on mobile, released in late 2022

It all makes me wonder why Skype was even removed from Windows 11, and why Microsoft bothered to try and push users to use Teams.

And Teams still isn't great

It feels like any effort Microsoft has been putting into the consumer version of Teams is half-hearted. When Microsoft introduced Teams in Windows 11, I complained for months about how video calling was broken. For a long time, Teams would not create a floating overlay window during video calls, so you couldn't see the other participants if you were to switch to another window. In fact, today, you still have to specifically minimize the Teams window for the small floating window to pop up, and it still won't appear if you switch to another app.

Then, for an even longer time, if I minimized Teams to see the small window, the other person's video feed would be frozen when I returned to the main call window. This was eventually fixed, but it's basic functionality that Skype nailed for years. Even now, it's not uncommon for me to be unable to see the person on the other side of a video call, with Teams acting as if their camera is turned off, even when it isn't. Teams just isn't reliable as a video calling service.

But it's not like Microsoft isn't doing anything with Teams. Recently, it added a new Communities feature to the personal version of Teams, which is something Skype didn't get. The Windows 11 integration has also improved with a built-in video preview in the Chat pane. Microsoft is just not putting effort into the basic functionality of Teams to make it a good replacement for Skype.

A graphic where a screenshot of the Microsoft Teams mobile app is shown, surrounded by various design elements

The consumer version of Teams feels like an afterthought. Whenever you hear about new Teams features, it's almost always exclusively for the business-oriented version, and only rarely do we get something like the Communities feature (which, by the way, requires you to set it up on mobile before using it on your PC). Microsoft wants you to use it, but it doesn't want to put any effort into making it appealing.

Microsoft's messaging strategy is horribly convoluted and consists of a bunch of mixed signals that make it impossible to understand where the company is headed. Skype has been removed from Windows 11 and barely gets any updates, but every now and then, it gets a major revamp as if it's still a thriving app. It even gets features that Teams still doesn't have. And then, at the same time, Teams has a consumer version built right into Windows 11, and it also gets features Skype doesn't have, but Microsoft still hasn't nailed the basics of a good messaging and calling app.

At this point, it feels like you're better off using anything but either of these apps, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what people are doing. I only have one or two contacts that use Teams, and none that use Skype. And if Microsoft keeps this up, I suspect things will only get worse for both services. Maybe the company will think of acquiring another messaging service in the next few years, though I'm not sure if that would change much, either.