Microsoft announced today it is killing Skype for Windows 10 Mobile, for anyone not on the Anniversary Update, among other platforms receiving the death knell.
Microsoft announced today that Skype for Windows Phone 8, Windows Phone 8.1, the Messaging app for Windows 10 Mobile, Windows RT and also TVs will be permanently retired and can no longer be used in any way from July 1st, 2017. You won't even be able to sign into them.
Microsoft's email simply refers to "Windows 10 Mobile," no doubt, plunging the faithful few remaining into despair, the utopian vision of "the year of Windows Mobile" sinking even further.
In past years, Microsoft has continued to erode its Windows 10 Mobile platform through selling its Nokia brand, to expanding Microsoft Office to Apple and Android devices, and now to killing off its own messaging app on its own platform. While making Microsoft Office available on a wider variety of platforms is ultimately a good thing, the point simply remains that for a company ordinarily spruiking eating its own dog food, it looks like it is just eating its own dog as far as Windows Mobile goes.
{loadposition david08}More detail is available online with an FAQ on what the new system requirements for Skype are, and this clarifies Skype will continue to exist for Windows 10 Mobile, just not for any version older than the Windows 10 Mobile Anniversary update. Of course, your availability to get this "varies with manufacturer."
With this update not even 12 months old, it seems a curious choice to further alienate the Windows 10 Mobile fan base, hitting home the realisation that app marketplace isn't going to take off anytime soon.
On the positive, Linux users can now acknowledge Microsoft isn't unfairly singling them out for a second-rate Skype experience when soon Skype just will not work at all on a current Microsoft platform.