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Is Microsoft killing Skype for Windows 8, 8.1?

Speed News Desk | Updated on: 10 February 2017, 1:47 IST

Microsoft has confirmed that it is dropping support for the Skype app on Windows Phone 8 and 8.1 in October this year.

The company will discontinue the app by early 2017. This will affect devices running Windows as well as smartphones running Android 4.0.3 or older OS versions, not to mention Windows RT users.

"While support will no longer be available from October 2016, the Skype app on Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8.1 will continue to work (possibly with some limitations) until early 2017, when we finish moving Skype calling to the cloud," reads Microsoft's Skype support page.

Microsoft had previously announced that it would support the Skype app on Windows 7, 8, XP and Vista, Yosemite on Mac, and iOS 8 operating systems.

"These decisions are hard to make, but they are necessary as Skype moves forward so we can deliver new experiences on devices that have the capability to support them. As such, we will begin to implement these changes over the coming months" said Skype chief Gurdeep Pall in a recent blog post.

"Our focus will be on the newly released lighter, faster and more responsive UWP app for Windows 10, Skype for iPhone, iPad and Android as well as a web-based native version of Skype for other supported platforms like previous Windows operating systems, Mac and Linux, which will benefit from the latest ORTC or WebRTC technology that we've been working on for the last year," the post added.

First published: 13 August 2016, 2:20 IST