• @[email protected]
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    19112 days ago

    MSN messenger died for Skype

    Skype died for Teams

    We’re not on a great trajectory here

    (Yes Lync too, but everyone was pleased about that)

    • @[email protected]
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      2312 days ago

      Teams dying doesn’t sound too bad either. Just hoping the next iteration isn’t even worse

      • @[email protected]
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        611 days ago

        Next iteration will be “Copilot for Teams”.
        Whenever you get a message, Copilot will auto-send an answer unless you click “no” in a popup without window decorations, showing a timer.
        On Windows Pro, you can disable this with a registry key, but that resets with feature updates.

        • @[email protected]
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          211 days ago

          You know, if copilot also joins morning meetings for you while you sleep, that’s a deal I’m willing to make

      • lemmyng
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        5612 days ago

        Teams

        New Teams

        Teams (New)

        Teams with Copilot

        Copilot Teams

          • @[email protected]
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            1011 days ago

            By “coexist” we mean being installed side by side with barely distinguishable icons, and when you try to log into the wrong one with the wrong type of Microsoft account (where the login mask looks exactly the same), it throws a helpful error message saying “this account does not exist”.

    • @[email protected]
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      12 days ago

      What most people don’t know about the ouroboros is that every time the creature eats itself it becomes a little bit closer to being a turd (a consequence of its peculiar metabolism) so even though from an inside perspective the system appears to be in a complex mysterious cyclic kind of stasis, from the outside it is just more and more obviously a turd in the shape of a donut.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 days ago

          I am not sure I remember anymore, I have eaten my tail one too many times.

          I don’t think this is a direct meaning of the metaphor, though any metaphor of endlessly repeating cycles can be placed in a rhetorical framework where it represents enshittification so I am sure I am not the first person to add or tweak the metaphor with that context.

    • @[email protected]
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      412 days ago

      Did it die, though? Last time I had to use windows for work (shudder) the Teams app process name was lync.exe. Or was it Skype?

      Either way, shit’s still around.

  • @[email protected]
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    19012 days ago

    Still find it absolutely wild that Microsoft fucked up during the global pandemic and allowed Zoom to slide right into the communications spot Skype should have been.

    Fucking idiots.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 days ago

      Did they really? Microsoft championed Teams and its pretty accepted in corporate environments today, especially if they are already on Microsoft.
      Afaik, Skype for Business was merged into Teams. Skype for non-business consumers has been virtually dead for longer. The way I see it, Microsoft let go of the brand, the value of which is questionable in this decade. When they bought it, I remember the rumors saying it was because of its voice codec, which probably got used in everything from xbox live to teams in the end.

      • @[email protected]
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        1911 days ago

        Nobody uses Teams voluntarily. It’s always imposed by corporate.
        Skype was the term for skyping. It’s like buying a social media that coined the term tweet and changing it’s name to a letter. Stupidest shit ever.

    • @[email protected]
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      4112 days ago

      Microsoft has 1 massive disadvantage when it tries to enter new markets.

      It has to deal with brutal cutthroat competition from its worst enemy: Microsoft.

      Ms internal politics destroy almost all its successes, their politics are why theyve never really been a threat, for every skype there’s a teams which cuts them off at the knees lest it cost a division head their chance at a promotion.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 days ago

          I heard about that, some call it the “wasted decade” at MS. Top engineers refused to work together due to the stack ranking, not wanting draw the short end of the stick in the evaluations, when compared to each other.

          A company I worked at 10 years ago also dabbled with it a bit, luckily not seriously. It was a consultancy firm who hired top graduates from prestige universities, so it made even less sense. Dude, nobody is average or below here, you hire the best people after grilling them in interviews and a whole day assessment center. The bell curve just doesn’t make sense

          • @[email protected]
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            611 days ago

            My company does it and it’s fucking stressful. And just like you said, it doesn’t make a ton of sense.

            Occasionally there are certainly people who are just there to ride coat tails but I see this behavior more in leadership than in the front lines.

    • Ghostalmedia
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      2912 days ago

      IMHO, the pandemic just allowed everyone to see how much better of an experience Zoom had over Skype.

      I worked in an office where half of corporate used Skype, and the cooler sub-brands used Zoom. No one in the main corporate office was happy about using Skype. Microsoft had been neglecting it for quite some time.

      • @[email protected]
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        2111 days ago

        Microsoft had been neglecting it for quite some time.

        You’re right but that’s why they’re idiots 😄

        • Ghostalmedia
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          911 days ago

          Yeah, right before the pandemic it was becoming clear that Skype was in Keep The Lights On mode, and MS wanted to funnel all of those users into Teams. But Teams also sucked.

          It’s a lot better than it used to be, but it still takes MS an ungodly amount of time to build basic features that have been in Slack / Zoom for a decade… and MS is one of the biggest companies in the world.

    • kilonova
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      1311 days ago

      I couldn’t get my head round this at all. Everyone used Skype where I worked, and it seemed hugely popular. By the time COVID happened, I was in another job, and all of a sudden everyone was going mad about this Zoom program. I’d never heard of it, but it just came out of nowhere and everyone on the planet was using it. How on earth Skype fumbled it so hard is absolutely staggering.

      • @[email protected]
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        1511 days ago

        Skype didn’t fumble it, Microsoft just doesn’t know how to strategy. When they bought Skype, they killed MSN and told people to move to Skype, whereas they should’ve integrated the two to make the transition seamless. Then they had both Teams and Skype for Business at the same time by the time COVID happened.

        They messed up on every turn.

    • ඞmir
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      1512 days ago

      MS Teams did become the standard in a lot of places now

          • @[email protected]
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            11 days ago

            Try searching for something that was said in a chat last month.
            Then follow what was said in reply.

            Now as an admin, try to delete an image someone has shared with the team.
            Or control who can create new teams.

            But my biggest pet peeve, which annoys me literally every day, is how it shows a notification for a new message in your task bar.
            You click on it, Teams opens how you left it, and you read the message.
            But the notification stays. To get rid of it, you have to click on a different chat, then back on the one where the message was posted.

              • @[email protected]
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                11 days ago

                I just don’t understand how an app that’s primarily a chat can fail at notifications and searching through the chat log.

                • @[email protected]
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                  511 days ago

                  Let me introduce you to discord. You get a notification for a message but there’s no way to find it. You keep clicking the notification and it won’t actually scroll up to the message to let you read it

        • ඞmir
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          111 days ago

          I never said it wasn’t dogshit, but Microsoft did win the corporate messenger race

    • @[email protected]
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      6312 days ago

      Hey, RIM/Blackberry’s CEO went to mobile world Congress in 2010, 3 solid YEARS after the iPhone launched, was dominating and defining the smartphone world and said, “we feel touchscreen is not the future of mobile phones” and rolled out another hybrid touch/keyboard model like the 5 they already had

      Blackberry was $150/share as of 2009 with the entire world in front of it. It’s now worth $3.59/share.

      • @[email protected]
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        1312 days ago

        Netflix tried to get distribution in Blockbuster and a partnership w/them and were told to fuck off …

      • ☂️-
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        12 days ago

        to be fair i miss physical keyboards on phones. i wish we still had space for it.

        • @[email protected]
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          311 days ago

          Their stuff was better, but disadvantaged by public perception. A perfect storm one can say.

          • @[email protected]
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            110 days ago

            Their stuff was significantly worse in user experience. Buttery smooth scrolling and highly reactive multi touch on a touch screen only device was revolutionary. Touch screens back then were known to be shitty to use. The competition to the iPhone were phones with tons of buttons, styluses and cumbersome user interfaces.

            All previous players in the smartphone market Blackberry, Nokia, Palm, Windows mobile were slow to adapt and failed.

            Palm’s webOS was competitive to iOS and in many ways superior. It failed because of mediocre hardware, bad carrier deals, and running out of money too quickly.

            Google‘s Android succeeded despite sucking until about version 4 by willpower and deep pockets from Google.

            The original introduction keynote for the iPhone was mindblowing back then.

            • @[email protected]
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              210 days ago

              with tons of buttons, styluses and cumbersome user interfaces.

              My dad had one. I liked that more. What you call cumbersome I call clean and sharp.

              While those rows of vaguely symbolic mildly nauseating icons we have now irritate, overload and suppress me.

              And back then I didn’t know that, but making Tcl/Tk programs for Windows Mobile of that time, for example, was as easy as for desktops.

              All previous players in the smartphone market Blackberry, Nokia, Palm, Windows mobile were slow to adapt and failed.

              Yes, that’s why Stephen Elop went from Microsoft to Nokia, buried Nokia’s relevant smartphone business, then went right back to Microsoft. Blackberry was too business-oriented, they should have marketed more universally.

              And they even dropped Maemo. Maemo didn’t have any of Symbian’s supposed “burning” traits. Nobody can persuade me a Linux+Qt based system is worse than iOS, especially of that time.

              Dunno about Palm then.

              Windows Mobile was Microsoft’s accidental good product, of course they decided to bury that as soon as they found an excuse.

              Let’s clarify this - I don’t consider iPhone anything good. Its success is a result of a cultist phenomenon which didn’t lead to anything good either. I agree about Android.

              But I can also see how that phenomenon happened, I myself looked in awe at anything Apple, just where I live it was and is considered luxury stuff. I also had this indoctrination from stupid books and articles about Stephen Jobs being some genius and Apple being a good company and the underdog. Had a children’s book about computers with the semi-transparent colored plastic iMac and classic MacOS screenshots, and had seen an ad about the lamp-shaped iMac G5, liked that aesthetic, wanted that. Used QuickTime browser plugin under Windows 2000, and my dad had an iPod. By the time I’ve seen a Mac IRL Apple’s aesthetic mutated into some ugly crap I didn’t like. I still feel that awe in what others do with software like Hotline and KDX and other things that originated on Macs. Apple had a huge emotional capital. Unfortunately, it went the way it went.

              • @[email protected]
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                110 days ago

                Using TCL/Tk and Qt based apps on smartphones with a stylus was a pain in the butt in my experience.

                You probably mean Windows Phone, not mobile. Yes, Windows Phone 7 and 8 on Nokia phone were really compelling.

                Being able to scroll and zoom real websites smoothly on a phone, instead of having to use crappy WAP was huge.

                This meant lots of people were getting an iPhone as their first smartphone.

                The iPhone succeeded initially because of ease of use. Of course Apple‘s brand image played a role as well. When it came out it was 1000 US$, making it more expensive than other phones. So it instantly became a status symbol.

                Ease of use and status meant the executives of corporations started to demand their IT departments make the iPhone work with their Microsoft based networks and such.

                Later on Apple started supporting corporate features and mobile device management for corporations really well. Corporate IT loves iPhones because of the great management options, the limited range of models, and long support with software updates. Once Apple had a foot in corporate, their success became cemented.

                • @[email protected]
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                  110 days ago

                  You probably mean Windows Phone, not mobile. Yes, Windows Phone 7 and 8 on Nokia phone were really compelling.

                  No, I mean Windows Mobile. Windows Phone with those tiles - no.

                  Once Apple had a foot in corporate, their success became cemented.

                  Dunno, it felt like the cult part fired much earlier and for much longer.

      • @[email protected]
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        611 days ago

        Intel thought the iPhone market was going to be too small so they didn’t agree to manufacture their CPUs

        • @[email protected]
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          611 days ago

          While also completely missing the boat on the potential of graphics cards and watching Nvidia and even AMD become massively more relevant in recent years.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 days ago

        I think he felt right, but at the same time Blackberry wasn’t properly marketed.

        And maybe having a touchscreen option would be good enough.

  • @[email protected]
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    2511 days ago

    I fell out of contact with a lot of people when they shuttered MSN messenger for Skype, so not sad to see it go.

    • kilonova
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      1911 days ago

      MSN Messenger was brilliant. At the time I used it, everyone I knew used it. It was the go-to for communication.

    • The Quuuuuill
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      1112 days ago

      microsoft pissed away all the brand recognition it ever had and turned it into teams. in 2020 it was poised to be the most important technology there was, but having received no updates in years, it was effectively already dead

  • @[email protected]
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    10 days ago

    Immigration Canada wanted proof of my wife and I’s relationship, so we dumped a packet of printed call logs on them as thick as a novel. Skype certainly served its purpose.

  • @[email protected]
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    8 days ago

    I remember the “old” Skype, which was essential for keeping in touch with my siblings before we got cell phones. Once I got a phone, it was the end of Skype until ~2014 when I got a job where Skype for business was available. I still didn’t use it because that application would sometimes crash if you just jiggled the mouse. It became a running joke at my workplace.

    Clock into work, Skype crashed.

    Go to lunch, Skype crashed.

    Ran out of TP at home. You guessed it. Skype crashed.

  • @[email protected]
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    3812 days ago

    On one hand, having been forced to use Skype, I’m happy to see it gone. On the other hand, they somehow made it worse and called it Teams.

    • @[email protected]
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      1012 days ago

      Please don’t confuse skype4biz and Skype. The former only borrows the name, and shares a lot of code with teams, Lync and probably netmeeting.

      The latter will be missed.

      • DarkSirrush
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        612 days ago

        Skype for business was truly awful.

        A new convo instance every time I messaged the same person after a few hours of not, taking upwards of 10 minutes to sync convos between my laptop and my phone if it did at all, and the shittiest voice/video functions ever? Glad that shit died, teams seems amazing in comparison.

      • Lka1988
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        212 days ago

        Communicator should be in there somewhere, too

  • @[email protected]
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    1210 days ago

    Story of the times, have a good thing then break it so you can replace it with a shitier thing. Then have the competition eat your lunch by making a slightly less shitty thing.

    I found my physical “skipe” phone last week, dang it we could have had a bad bitch. But no, now we have fucking teams.

  • fmstrat
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    911 days ago

    For us plebs. Government (US) will still use it for years to come.

  • mechoman444
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    2411 days ago

    I’m 39. So I’ve been around Skype since it came out back in 2003. Since then, 22 years later I didn’t use it a single time. Never downloaded the program, app or accessed the webpage. 🤷

    • @[email protected]
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      911 days ago

      I used Skype a couple of times - I was talking to someone overseas. This was pre zoom. It’s interesting that they dropped the ball, they could have been zoom.

  • @[email protected]
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    6711 days ago

    skype was way ahead of his time. The quality was top notch. MS fucked by changing the architecture from decentralized to centralized in windows servers - this fucked up the calls quality and it created an opportunity window for whatsapp, viber, etc…

    MS turned skype to shit.

  • @[email protected]
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    1312 days ago

    Can I guess that the American amoral capitalist company won’t have transferred my Skype credit?

    • @[email protected]
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      711 days ago

      I had like $9.22 remaining credit from some international calls back in 2002 I was going to use…eventually.

  • @[email protected]
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    1512 days ago

    I find it funny Microsoft gave me a survey on my work PC asking about how I’m enjoying its products (I laughed in Linux, “how do you like windows customizablity” let me go off about KDE lol)

    But back to the subject. Literally everything they work on seems to turn to shit — I wonder what kind of survey feedback are they usually getting? “Oh, Skypes cool but I really like Teams”