
Microsoft to shut London Skype office putting 220 jobs at risk - mpweiher
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37405177
======
electic
Yea, the UI blows but one of the biggest concerns with Skype is that it is a
leaky box. I know a lot of friends who have left skype because of government
tapping. By tapping, I mean multiple governments all over the world seem to
have unfettered access to every call and chat on the system.

When you are using the tool for business, that is a deal breaker.

~~~
skrebbel
What alternatives do you suggest for business?

~~~
walexander
Cisco Spark: www.ciscospark.com

It provides end to end encryption with customer owned keys.

High level data on the security model:
[https://www.ciscospark.com/content/dam/ciscospark/eopi/count...](https://www.ciscospark.com/content/dam/ciscospark/eopi/country/usa/assets/pdf/Cisco%20Spark%20Security%20Infographic.pdf)

Draft of the KMS technology behind it: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-
abiggs-saag-key-management...](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-abiggs-saag-
key-management-service-00)

~~~
atmosx
I think Snowden revelations showed Cisco in bed with the NSA, I wouldn't trust
them if government surveillance is a concern.

There are many open source for teleconference these days, e.g.
[https://jitsi.org/](https://jitsi.org/) \- I recall a few appearing on HN as
well.

~~~
walexander
One of the points of the E2E security model used here is so that you don't
have to trust Cisco.

~~~
oneloop
You still have to trust that the encryption is indeed E2E as they claim, no?

I mean, whatsapp claims it has E2E encryption, but I've never checked...

~~~
obmelvin
[https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp-
complete/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/)

I'm not sure what parts you can verify, but I'm willing to trust the word of
those at Whisper. Perhaps I'm naive but they seem to genuinely care about
improving privacy for others.

~~~
sz4kerto
This comment also shows that privacy is always based on trust. Trusting Cisco,
Google, Microsoft, OpenSSL devs, Whisper Systems, whatever. You can decide
who's more sympathetic, moxie, Zuckerberg, Nadella..

~~~
oneloop
That was exactly the point I was trying to make when I responded to someone
saying "well, with E2E encryption you don't have to trust them". Yes you do.

------
rezashirazian
Skype is broken.

A while ago I saw multiple charges on my MSN account which is linked to my
skype account. It was for Skype credits through some odd russian account that
was messaging me on skype and some how getting my account to purchase credits.
I quickly changed my password and removed my CC from my account.

When I tried to get the issue resolved no one from Microsoft's support was
able to help me because I couldn't verify the date I opened up my skype
account (it was a long time ago I couldn't remember)

I managed to get my money back only when I went to Visa and told them these
charges were fraudulent. Microsoft returned my money the next day and I
haven't used skype since then.

~~~
jasonkostempski
A few weeks ago, after more than 8 years having not used Skype, I got a random
email saying my password was reset. Knowing it wasn't me and now remembering I
have a Skype account, I decided to just close the account. To reset my
password I had to verify my email address and answer about 15 questions, most
of which I didn't know the answer to (but was still able to reset it). It took
45 minutes with support to get the account closed. I realized later that I
never got a pre-verification email for the initial reset and was nervous my
email might have been compromised, but I really don't think that was the case.
I think it was reset through some other method, possibly internal since it
bypassed the email verification. I did have a $1.03 balance on my account and
my theory is that someone inside Skype is targeting stale accounts with a
balance or CCs still on file.

~~~
brianwawok
A few weeks ago was a big data leak. I would check your email from there. Much
more likely than someone at Skype wanting to steal your $1.03

------
Ensorceled
Skype is the worst business tool that I use day to day and it continues to get
buggier with each new release. I now have permanent ghost notification icons
and I had delete Skype on my iPhone so my desktop app could receive calls
reliably.

Headwinds indeed.

~~~
jobu
Skype really went down the toilet when Microsoft bought them. At one point (~5
years ago) they were the best video chat and VOIP product by a long shot. Text
chat and user search were clunky, but at least the notifications were
reliable. It was a great tool for working with a remote team spanning multiple
continents.

Now, the voice quality is still pretty good compared to a landline call, but
the calls tend to drop, video quality has gone to crap, and the call/text
notifications are broken. (I just got a notification on my phone about a text
from yesterday, and it never showed up on my computer. WTF!??)

~~~
imglorp
After purchase, Microsoft changed the architecture from peer-to-peer to
client-server, which incurs extra latency obviously.

[https://blogs.skype.com/2013/10/04/skype-architecture-
update...](https://blogs.skype.com/2013/10/04/skype-architecture-update/)

[http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/skype-
replaces-p2p-s...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/skype-
replaces-p2p-supernodes-with-linux-boxes-hosted-by-microsoft/)

~~~
contingencies
Great for surveillance though!

------
iamleppert
Skype has gone down hill terribly since being acquired by Microsoft. You can
almost draw a line in the sand it's been so bad.

I used to use skype for texting people, but it's now completely useless for
that. They can't receive any SMS messages from any phones (at least in the
US), and who knows if what you send actually goes somewhere. Nevermind they
advertise this feature when you're signing up. Its shocking they would allow a
feature like that to still exist and just be fundamentally broken. They did
recently move it to some obscure place in the UI in a recent "update" and not
even one of their support people knew where it had gone; I had to find it
again myself.

That said, all the recent UI updates have been horrible. Not just talking
buggy, but the general look and feel has gone way down hill. I had an old
laptop with an older version of the Skype client and its amazing the
different. They should have left well enough alone.

Add in the super annoying birthday notifications as chat messages, the spam
that has gotten out of control, broken payments recharge/web UI, it's a wonder
Microsoft should just shutter the entire product down. It's ruined and I have
stopped using it. It's clear they do not care about their end users, or
improving the product in any sustainable way.

I wonder how long before the same happens with LinkedIn (which is already on
the deathbed in terms of how bad and buggy it's been getting lately).

~~~
randomfool
Maybe it was the gutting that Skylake did to optimize profits when selling to
Microsoft.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/skype-scandal-silver-
lake-201...](http://www.businessinsider.com/skype-scandal-silver-lake-2011-6)

------
jaimehrubiks
The weird part is that Skype, like it or not, has become worse every year. If
you asked me 2 years ago I would never imagine it could loose users ever
(like, whatsapp for example) now I see that I was wrong. Not only they did not
improve or add functionality required by some users, loosing to competitors,
but also their software has become buggier somehow.

~~~
harigov
That's what terrible management does to products

------
btreesOfSpring
When the product began to display connection status at launch, it was a
welcome update but it made me wonder why the recent decision to add this to
the UI. If things are moving along smoothly, there doesn't tend to be a need
to add gauges and indicators to your instrumentation. What is most likely are
some backend issues after some migration or update was leading to a lot of
inconsistent messaging problems. Adding connection status was a sanity check
for troubleshooting these issues. It was one of those improvements that helped
explain why things seemed to be a bit flaky recently.

There is a lot of competition in this space and I sort of feel that Skype was
a Windows Phone play that didn't pan out for MS after the Windows Phone failed
(along side the Nokia deal). Unfortunately for the London office, the product
heads are not really sure how to right this ship. Hopefully everyone lands
gracefully, whatever happens with the product.

~~~
WorldMaker
Also an outsider, looking in, but I get the feeling it was more the opposite,
Microsoft bought Skype for its brand first, users second, and left alone as a
fiefdom to itself. I think Windows mobile efforts (phone) have actually been
part of the kick (along with external pressure from Slack, HipChat, Facebook
Messenger, Whatsapp, et al) to finally unify efforts, beyond just unifying
brands.

~~~
btreesOfSpring
The contrary perspective is appreciated. My outside take was the MS acquired
Skype for the reasons you mention and in addition they also thought they had a
VoiP solution that would be the killer app for Windows Phone. Then that ran
into the obvious telecom incumbent push back that Apple and the iPhone seemed
to navigate with such ease. MS arrogantly disregarded the telecoms positioning
in this time period period since the telecoms were going to lose their voice
revenue before having worked out mobile IP pricing and caps. The telecoms
didn't want a voice service competition. So then Windows Phone was without its
killer app and everything started to atrophy (Windows Phone/Skype/Nokia).

~~~
WorldMaker
From what I saw, I felt like Microsoft bought Skype well before its modern
Windows Phone plans quite started to take shape and that Microsoft didn't have
much of an idea what to do with Skype other than Ebay was selling it and
Microsoft preferred to own it than let it go to a competitor. (Thus far seems
to be just about the only reason they recently bought LinkedIn, too. It was
for sale and they didn't want it going to a competitor.) At the time of the
Skype purchase it seemed that Microsoft was still trying to salvage what it
could of MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger/Live Messenger/some other Brand
of the Day which was leaking users like a sieve and meanwhile was fighting an
internal fiefdom war with Lync, which was executing faster and smarter.

Basically, insert classic XKCD org chart diagram here of Microsoft being in a
Mexican standoff with itself, especially at that time.

From that perspective, (and also one of being a Windows Phone 8 and now 10
owner), I don't think Skype was bought for Windows Phone and I don't think
Skype is part of why Windows Phone is currently seeming rather atrophied.
Instead, I think its Windows Phone where we've seen some of the hardest fought
"battles" in the "One Microsoft" movement to de-escalate the old "mexican
standoff" at Microsoft. (Which makes sense in a strange way: Microsoft
couldn't afford as many "casualties" on the desktop or in the enterprise, so
phone/mobile has been the proxy war.)

I think wanting a VoIP competitor to Apple's Facetime efforts was a part of
the overall agenda for at least one of the messaging teams. But in terms of a
lot of the shifts in branding choices and app approaches, I think a lot more
of what we have seen in Windows Phone has been Microsoft's most externally
visible battlefield where it has been trying to figure how best to merge all
of its messaging and communications teams and destroy the old fiefdoms and
silos (and guns pointed at each others heads). (All while marketing tries to
fight from accidentally burning down a brand along with some of the
bridges...) Windows Phone was just a useful catalyst (battlefield) to force
that confrontation, without impacting the desktop too much.

That's essentially what this announcement seems to be about to me: the
crashing down of another silo as Microsoft truly starts to consolidate its
many communications apps.

~~~
horatiumocian
Just a small correction: Microsoft bought Skype from Silver Lake / Andreessen
Horowitz, not EBay. At the time Microsoft bought it, Skype seemed to prepare
for an IPO, although I'm not sure how willing they were to go through with it.

------
planetjones
I wish Skype for business was a decent product but it's not. Strange UI
quirks. Limits on the length of messages for no good reason. Emoticons which
only appear once the message is sent - SQL statements are rendered to
nonsense. All images are converted to thumbnails which need to be opened.
Audio quality issues galore too. A lot of companies have moved to Skype for
business for IM and VoIP. Not an enterprise level product.

~~~
vosper
Isn't Skype for Business just Lync with a new name? I'm not sure it has any
relation to the original Skype?

~~~
planetjones
Exactly it's like someone said let's turn Lync into Skype. Rather than
building something useful they added the Skype name and kept the same dodgy
implementation. Pat on the backs all round...

------
0xmohit
Skype hasn't really changed in years now. Linux support doesn't exist despite
claims of _embracing_ it.

This is an official sign that it would be strictly in maintenance mode.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It doesn't sound like you're even remotely informed of what's going on in the
Skype world lately. Basically, the old infrastructure was peer-to-peer, and
over the last couple of months, Microsoft has been moving Skype over to a
cloud version. That's why you'll notice the announcements that a lot of older
clients and platforms would stop working, and brand new apps have been made
for all of the current platforms... including a brand new Linux client.

If anything, this year is the biggest change Skype has EVER HAD.

~~~
rattyc
Sounds like I should take a look at the latest client, I stopped using Skype
years ago because the Linux client sucked so much.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
No guarantees it won't still suck. (Though it's completely new, I think it's
Electron-based or something.) Just saying, there IS a huge momentum at
Microsoft to rework Skype from the ground up.

------
cylinder
The product does not seem to have ever changed. It's clunkier than ever too.
You can find me on Duo.

~~~
bryanlarsen
On Linux you have the choice between "never changed, clunkier than ever" and
"OMG, this is completely different"
([https://blogs.skype.com/2016/07/13/skype-for-linux-alpha-
and...](https://blogs.skype.com/2016/07/13/skype-for-linux-alpha-and-calling-
on-chrome-and-chromebooks/))

~~~
creshal
The "new" Linux interface is roughly comparable to what Windows/Mac users have
had for a while now.

------
stuaxo
Ah, "Unify some positions", - the old - "we are not sacking YOU, but your role
doesn't exist any more".

I believe this works around some relevant labour laws.

~~~
robert_tweed
This is precisely how redundancy works. Sacking is generally related to
personal performance. Not the same thing.

~~~
shostack
In the UK is there a material difference from an employee perspective? In the
US, if you are fired with cause, the company can fight you on paying out
unemployment. If you are terminated without cause, it typically doesn't matter
what the reason was behind it--you're still eligible for unemployment.

~~~
robert_tweed
Yes. In the UK at least, there are 3 forms of payment someone might receive:

\- Unemployment benefits, paid by the state if they don't get another job
straight away;

\- Their usual salary during the notice period, or pay in lieu of notice if
they are sent home immediately (common in IT for security reasons);

\- Redundancy pay.

The last one only needs to be paid in the case of dismissal "without cause".
However, it's not called that. Redundancy refers to the fact that the job
doesn't exist anymore. E.g., because the office closed down as is happening at
Skype London. You can't just sack someone on a whim and say it is "without
cause".

Where things get a bit more complicated in a case like Skype/Microsoft is that
they have an obligation to offer their existing employees new jobs elsewhere
in the company if possible. This isn't an especially strong obligation, but it
does make things awkward if they keep, say, 50% of the staff, because there
needs to be some reasoning as to why they kept that particular 50%, which
needs to be seen as fair.

------
withinrafael
Microsoft is also reportedly working on yet another Skype client, alongside
their Skype Universal Windows app.

[http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/09/micros...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/09/microsoft-shuts-down-skype-office-in-london-as-it-develops-
yet-another-client)

------
oneplane
Newsflash: big company does strategic business and decides to clean up
redundancies...

I get that it's sad when your job no longer exists, but you can't really
expect a business to pay for people it doesn't need anymore. I see a lot of
outrage as people seem to think it's unethical to have your job lose it's
right to existence, but it's just a fact of life if you're working for a
larger business: you might be needed at some point, and at some other point,
that might no longer be the case.

------
sandGorgon
There's another news article on Twitter closing its India office and firing a
team of barely 20 .. Which is dominated by discussion of how Indian
programmers suck (and about the quality of English language spoken in India).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12538640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12538640)

This thread is about Skype.

------
boardwaalk
Sometimes I wonder about the invisible costs of a popular messaging system
that often drops messages and/or notifications. How much miscommunication and
missed connections has it caused?

It's really shameful to not have something reliable after we've had SMS for 2
decades with <1% failure rate and iMessage/Hangouts is generally okay. It
really irks me in the worst way, being someone who has enough problems keeping
in touch with people.

------
mtgx
A Skype write-off is probably coming in the next 2-3 years, along with many
more layoffs. Microsoft will never make its $8 billion back on Skype.

~~~
collyw
I hope so, and maybe a decent VOIP client will gain market share.

~~~
heidar
Is one really needed? Facebook has VOIP, Slack has VOIP, most modern games
have decent built in VOIP. It's not an interesting problem anymore and it's
available everywhere.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Network effects. Skype is the only thing resembling a de facto standard for
talking to any two random non-technical people. Skype has literally 100x the
monthly active users of Slack, and barely anyone is on slack to make VOIP
calls, especially with people outside of their team.

~~~
GFischer
That's what WebRTC promises to solve, and there are already great tools using
it (Appear.in for example).

What they don't solve is the discovery/network aspect.

My own side project/startup wannabee uses WebRTC to enable random non-
technical people to talk to companies that use our product :) (
[https://keveo.tv/en/](https://keveo.tv/en/) ).

------
Philipp__
And what irritates me the most is that we don't have any real alternative.

~~~
ckozlowski
Take a look at Wire. ([http://wire.com](http://wire.com)) Good Skype
alternative, and E2E encryption. I've been enjoying it quite a bit.

~~~
Karunamon
Closed source, so E2E has to be taken on faith.

Strictly better than Skype in some ways, but privacy can't be taken to be one
of them.

~~~
FuNe
According to the table here
[https://wire.com/privacy/](https://wire.com/privacy/) it's open source

~~~
noarchy
Further to the point, here are their GitHub repos:
[https://github.com/wireapp](https://github.com/wireapp)

~~~
Karunamon
A-ha! Normally I'm used to these apps proclaiming their Free-ness on the front
webpage, but it didn't jump out at here. Much thanks for the linK!

------
moneyman101k
"The company said it was consolidating its London offices and moving workers
to a new site in Paddington."

It's not that big of a deal, they are just trying to consolidate all of the
good engineers into a cheaper office and letting go of the dead weight.

------
dagurp
I really hope this is the end for Skype for Business. Everything about it is
terrible

------
swingbridge
The whole merger of Skype with Microsoft's legacy products (Communicator and
Lync) has been a disaster. Lync was a solid product in the corporate world.
Now I dread getting a Skype meeting. I can't remember the last time where I've
been on a Skype for Business meeting where at least one person wasn't having
serious issues. They took a solid product and made a mess of it.

------
nojvek
It's just not skype, even Skype for business (former Lync) has gone down the
drain. It still baffles me why I can't paste 10 lines of code. Copying is
wonky, messages go to wrong computer. Calls barely work. Don't even get me
started on the UI.

------
lukasLansky
I wonder what that means for the Prague office.

~~~
falsestprophet
Prague is a lot cheaper than London.

Skype pays employees with title Software Development Engineer II:

    
    
      US$46k in Prague [0], and
      US$82k in London [1].
    

And I suspect life is a lot more comfortable in Prague on $46k than London on
$82k

[0] [https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Skype-Prague-Salaries-
EI_IE...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Skype-Prague-Salaries-
EI_IE35331.0,5_IL.6,12_IM989.htm\[0\]) [1]
[https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Skype-London-Salaries-
EI_IE...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Skype-London-Salaries-
EI_IE35331.0,5_IL.6,12_IM1035.htm)

~~~
0xmohit

      (82-46) * 220 = 7920
    

$7.92 million of savings. Somebody could see the bottomline improving and
stock price rocketing higher.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
If one wants to cause a stock price to rocket, I don't think finding $8M in a
$500B company with $85B in revenue is going to cut it.

~~~
0xmohit
I thought that the pun was obvious.

------
tucaz
Funny to see how comments about pretty much the same subject [1] are
completely different depending on the company on the spotlight even when the
number people getting laid off is way higher here.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12538640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12538640)

------
mapleoin
> Microsoft reviewed some London-based roles and made the decision to _unify
> some engineering positions_.

What does that mean?

~~~
wnevets
Probably means some people are getting fired and others are being merged into
other teams.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Probably means some people are getting fired

I think the proper term in this case is "laid off", since the company is
eliminating those positions by closing that particular office.

------
philfrasty
Anyone else has these creepy scam-ads on the frontpage of the Skype-client? Á
la „Loose 50 pounds in 2 weeks“

------
lispm
Founded in London?

I thought it was registered in Luxembourg and had a marketing office in
London. Development was in Estonia...

~~~
romanovcode
First it was developed in Estonia, then they sold it to eBay for couple of
mil. Then eBay sold it to MS for couple of bil.

------
rett12
It is there another alternative to Skype that is peer-to-peer, has encryption
and works on Linux?

~~~
luxpir
A few, but none with enough momentum to win over the mainstream. See Tox,
Vector/Matrix, Jitsi with OTR... Otherwise there are web-based solutions that
work well. Is it talky.io?

EDIT: Not forgetting Signal, of course. But I think you mean video comms?

~~~
Arathorn
I'm cautiously impressed by Matrix's momentum, to be honest (although I'm
biased given I work on it) - we've got over 300K users on the matrix.org
server now and around 1000 other servers visible from matrix.org. Meanwhile
Riot.im (the app previously known as Vector.im) is hopefully pretty mainstream
friendly...

~~~
ripdog
I'm looking forward to Matrix too. It's still very immature right now through,
as (as I understand it) we're still waiting for E2E encryption on mobile and
group video calling(?).

It's hard to see Matrix as a standard right now too, with only one server and
one client even remotely complete. Would love to see a multiplatform native
client!

Thanks for the work you do, I realllllly hope matrix attains some success.

------
djhworld
I only ever use Skype to talk to my parents back at home, it works OK.

I'm wondering if there is a better system though, the main issue is my parents
are used to using Skype, it would be an uphill struggle to get them to feel
comfortable with something new.

------
Myrmornis
This is a sad thread to read, I'd read so many positive things about Microsoft
recently. Are people from Microsoft bothered by such a strong negative
consensus regarding Skype?

~~~
amaks
Microsoft is laying people off left and right. Every year lately.

------
orbitingpluto
Well maybe their jobs could be saved by dedicating them to reliable tone
production over TCP/IP. Ever try to access a mailbox or navigate a customer
support call center through Skype?

~~~
chrisseaton
How can the fact it's TCP/IP interfere with the tones? TCP/IP only sees bytes.

~~~
thanatropism
Audio compression optimized for psychoacoustics, I figure.

I doubt you'd be able to plug a dial-up modem into skype and achieve a working
computer connection. Pure tones (as from key presses) is a less extreme case,
but it's a conceivable problem.

~~~
vetinari
To add to your point: Skype uses SILK codec, on which OPUS, the currently
preferred codec for internet-audio, was based.

~~~
gcp
If you do an outbound call (i.e. outside Skype, to something that would
actually use DTMF) Skype doesn't use SILK/Opus on the outbound connection. You
can tell because the quality is way worse.

There are also issues with the echo cancellation Skype uses. If you have
issues with DTMF, that's the likely cause, not the audio codec.

~~~
orbitingpluto
But echo cancellation should not be a problem on mobile devices.

------
senthil_rajasek
That feels more like firing a team for not producing, not making bottom-of-
the-stack-rank cuts because you need to free up budget.

~~~
firasd
Brilliant. Thanks. (For the uninitiated:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12538640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12538640))

