Skype ruled the video calling world for decades until the pandemic hit. With the start of work from home culture we thought that it will again become a household name. But instead we forgot skyping and were introduced with the new Zoom.
Skyping was so popular back then, that it was included as a verb in the dictionary. Once upon a time you used skype but now majority of us are zooming. Why is that? To understand that we have to go back to 2011 when Microsoft acquired it.
How did Skype lose its crown to Zoom?
In May 2011, Microsoft bought skype for 8.5 Million Dollars. But they did not put any effort to make it compete with other everyday communication apps like telegram or WhatsApp. After a while, they did redesign the app. Tried making it more young and flattering with emojis and new features. However none of it worked. Although it has better video and audio quality than zoom. Due to decreased skype users, it became increasingly alone to use it.
Why did Zoom work?
- Firstly, zoom is easier to use. Even non technical first time users can figure out how it works.
- Secondly downloading and installing zoom is painless.
- Any newbie can create a meeting link and send it to their contacts.
- It is free and supports Google calendar.
- As many as a 1000 participants can join through one meeting link.
- You can stream your meetings and webinars via Facebook.
- Supports all small, medium and large scale companies.
However, with every pro comes its cons too.
One of the most noticed drawback of Zoom is that it depends on the quality of your internet connection. Its overall performance still depends on the capacity of the user. Zoom might require as much as 600 MB to 1.75 GB in an hour. Which is too much for most of the population.
Also, users have reported about security breaches. Zoom was launches in the early 2020s and after 2-3 months of its use many people started complaining about risks. Unknown users could easily get into a meeting and take advantage of the situation. Although this was cleared and taken care of. But skype users never had to face such safety issues.
Skype statistics :
In 2010s skype had almost 100 million active users and 8 million payed customers. Most of the IT companies used it. Then came even more capitalization. After Microsoft, skype got introduced in the windows mobile phones. This lead to an annoying number of notifications and later into uninstalling the app. Users started facing video quality issues. And in 2016, Microsoft focused its total attention towards Teams.
This lead to user disappointment and Zoom focused on this part. Making itself rise in the global teleconferencing market. In the early 2000s skype was new and exciting. This platform gave users to talk to their loved ones from miles away. The idea of video conferencing while sitting at your home desk attracted many companies too. But right when it should be at its peak, skype users almost cancelled it. And now it seems that by 2022 July it would die off.
So, the question of the hour arises. What should you use? Zoom or Skype.
All the above topics enlisted the pros and cons of both the video conferencing apps. It finally depends on you to choose in which you are more comfortable in.
The Takeaway :
Zoom is a simple software that can be figured out even by armatures. That and the fact it successfully understood its users. And was able to grow into their needs made it the benchmark in the teleconferencing industry.
On the other hand, Skype failed in keeping up with the changing times. But tide waits for none. Anything and everything can be replaced. Because zoom is not the only fish in the pond. With the newer options like Hangouts and Teams, we can always expect the history to repeat itself.
Nevertheless, the increasing concern of reliability over Zoom meetings. Its end to end encryption has created a lot of tension among the users. And there’s been complain about email id leaks. That further affects the user trust. The trick that made it a household name, Zoom should not take it lightly. It can meet the same fate as skype if Zoom creators forget what made the software appealing to its customer in the first place.