Friendship ended with Skype, now Teams is my best friend! Windows 11 is coming in hot, and brings with it a series of new features and capabilities just like any new OS ought to.
This also means that the upcoming operating system will come with changes concerning the apps.
Or, rather, the bundled applications that come preinstalled.
One of the more interesting tidbits of news that came out from Redmond is that the company will not preinstall the Skype app on new Windows 11 devices. The official client will also not remain on existing devices when doing a clean install of the new OS.
The Skype app will only remain on devices that already had it installed before doing a basic upgrade to Windows 11, so at least current users will not have to worry about it being uninstalled without their permission.
In its stead, we have Microsoft Teams, the new favorite communication platform, to be integrated into the operating system.
To be fair, Skype has been trending downwards for several years now. The primary reason being a noticeable lack of interest from Microsoft. But the rise of easier and more fully featured rival platforms also played its part — the landscape of chat, voice, and video apps is now littered with choices.
All said and done, this is definitely not a good sign for the aging communications platform that launched all the way back in 2003, before being purchased by Microsoft for a whopping $8.5 billion in 2011.
While Skype will apparently still be available to download from the Microsoft Store for Windows users that want it, this removal from the list of essential apps for the OS sends a strong message.
A strong message that its days are numbered.
