
Microsoft to retire Skype Desktop API - nezza-_-
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/microsoft-can-skype-api
======
fluxon
"The Desktop API was created in 2004 and it doesn’t support mobile application
development." So what? _Desktop_ users built Skype with their Skype-to-phone
and phone-to-Skype (Skype Number) subscription money. We want what we paid
for: Skype API, and whatever apps and devices are supported by it. Mobile will
necessarily have different apps and devices with some (perhaps) overlap.
Developers should be courted to redeploy their apps to a Mobile API if they
like, and if their customers want. Microsoft should leave Desktop alone,
rather than dumbing it down and damaging ongoing Desktop product value.
Microsoft has been perennially wrong about product value. This is just one
more bold misstep.

~~~
hrkristian
That's just the thing though, the customer base no-longer require the desktop
API, because there is a new more attractive (mobile) market. Whatever amounts
of cash we threw at them in earlier years matters nothing, nothing at all.

------
ancarda
>These changes will significantly improve the call quality and speed of
delivery of instant messages, while retaining excellent battery life of mobile
devices.

How does scrapping a desktop API affect mobile in this way?

~~~
isaacwaller
Because Microsoft can update the Skype architecture so that it is more
centralized like other IM applications. Right now a lot of Skype is peer-to-
peer, which is not good on mobile. I, for one, am really looking forwards to
this change.

~~~
ancarda
I don't see how that affects the API.

    
    
        [API] --> [Skype] --> [Other Skype Clients]
    

Rather than:

    
    
        [API] --> [Skype] --> [Microsoft Servers]
    

Changing how the network is built shouldn't affect the API in this way since
there's an abstraction layer (The Skype program). It would really only affect
those who have reverse engineered the Skype protocol and built their own
clients.

As for making Skype more centralized, yes, that will improve the experience
for mobile users but it can be done without scrapping the API.

IMO, this is an excuse to scrap it and not a legitimate reason.

------
ffk
All I can find on their developer webpage that they appear to support is Skype
URIs. It's basically HTML tags that register the skype: service to send
commands to skype. The functionality appears to be completely one way. The app
sends a message to skype and skype takes over from there.

Skype API appears to be the same things as Skype Desktop API which is the ops
focus.

SkypeKit which allowed developers to create a headless skype client is no
longer accepting new developer registrations.
[https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA12322/what-is-
skypekit](https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA12322/what-is-skypekit)

I can't see anything at all about hardware that supports skype. This is
probably through some enterprise BD channel. Hopefully they aren't being
abandoned too.

------
vyrotek
A company I used to work for is panicking over this. One of their core
products had an integration with Skype using Skype4Com for various reasons.
They came to me recently asking if I had any recommendations for a better
platform. (They knew Skype was a temporary hack but didn't expect it to die
this fast)

Basically they need a white-labeled, web-based video conference solution.
They'd like centralized recording with the recordings accessible via an API
and support 1-to-1 and 1-to-N broadcasts. They've played around with TokBox
and UStream but they're not the greatest fit.

If anyone knows of a company or is working on a startup in this space I'll
gladly point them that direction. They're a global e-learning company with
huge government/education contracts.

~~~
wslh
My company sells solutions to intercept any application playback and recording
at the Windows OS level and we have a specific product targeted for Skype and
other VoIP applications: [http://www.nektra.com/products/audio-recorder-
api/](http://www.nektra.com/products/audio-recorder-api/) we also sells binary
instrumentation tools for companies who want to speedup their own
implementation [http://www.nektra.com/products/deviare-api-hook-
windows/](http://www.nektra.com/products/deviare-api-hook-windows/)

Our technology is being used in the security field in companies such as BAE
Systems stratsec, CyberPoint International, and for other uses like recording
YouTube videos in [http://www.jaksta.com/](http://www.jaksta.com/)

Feel free to contact me, even if you just need some guidance.

~~~
hayksaakian
Sales on HN, right before my eyes.

Well wadyaknow

~~~
wslh
It is help and completely focused on this topic, there are no many companies
focusing on bringing APIs for closed desktop/server applications.

------
sdfjkl
Who still uses Skype after it was _confirmed_ [1] that Microsoft sells our
personal text, voice and video conversations to dubious agencies?

Edit: Personally, I've switched to OTR (Adium/Pidgin) for text and ZRTP
(Jitsi) for voice/video.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-
nsa-c...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-
collaboration-user-data)

------
davexunit
Yet another example of what happens when you depend upon proprietary software.
The developers that are upset should have known better.

~~~
pradn
It's a little ridiculous to assert that no one should rely on proprietary
software. Are all the folks writing Windows applications or PlayStation games
idiots? A cautious approach toward relying on an API that's not central to
another company's business is the key.

~~~
jka
As a counter-point, the Facebook APIs are pretty crucial to Facebook's
business (third party developers and application functionality for users), but
they've seen plenty of instability and breaking changes in the past, many of
which cause real problems for businesses.

If you're aiming for the user-facing side of your business to be self-reliant,
under your own governance, and at the mercy of your _market_ rather than of
your _partners_ , then it can and does make sense to look at self-hosting open
source services and components; you pay a premium for the hosting, but you
know that you opt-in to upstream changes on your own timescale, and you can
fix issues yourself.

In reality it is indeed tricky to be so disciplined, and if some suppliers
provide very high-uptime services with reasonable failure modes (e.g. Google
Analytics), then it seems fair to go that route - but on the flip-side, data
really is money nowadays, and user privacy may be important if you care about
such things, so even these decisions can be questionable.

------
wubbfindel
Anyone know is this will effect the Skype4COM library?

I built a Skype bot using it for work just a few months ago. Really annoying
if it is.

~~~
nezza-_-
According to this it will stop working:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18822634/will-
skype4com-s...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18822634/will-skype4com-
stop-working-in-2014)

~~~
wubbfindel
Oh well. That's so daft. Will be either abandoning that project, or switching
to another alternative that does support such an API.

Maybe a new API that works well with mobile too will be released in time for
us to switch to it. Wouldn't take much to improve on the API, it is (was)
horrible.

------
matthewmacleod
Last time I tried to use the Skype API, it was horribly broken, and the
documentation was downright incorrect in several places. I guess it's not had
any love for a while.

------
vezycash
The current leadership at microsoft seems to actively trying to destroy the
company.

Compatibility is a word that could explain microsoft's success. Destroy that
and their competitive advantage is none existent.

I dont want to say more... But a lot of decisions these days are "change for
change sake."

~~~
aclevernickname
I agree with you, and I hope they continue their glorious plan to follow
current trends rather than be market leaders, all the way to the end-goal of
being an also-ran or footnote in history.

After watching the last 20 years of Microsoft's rise, domination, and fall,
I've concluded that no tech corporation should be the 800lb gorilla for more
than 5 years. At that point, it should be considered an area ripe for
disruption. I'm seeing Apple, Google, and Canonical (!) falling into that
category now. The sooner they're disrupted/replaced, the better off the rest
of us will be.

~~~
vezycash
Why is canonical on that list? Well Apple seems to have hit their limit and
are experiencing gravity.

I'm heavily vested in microsoft and just wish they'll stop trying to commit
suicide.

~~~
aclevernickname
Canonical is now starting to throw its weight around on things like Graphic
interfaces (Semi-proprietary Mir vs. Wayland), User Privacy (Selling Unity
Lens search results to Amazon), and then there's the Reality-Distortion Field;
Shuttleworth is starting to become a little too much like Steve Jobs
(harrassing people like the KWin Author), but without all the legal/business
chops Jobs had. People are starting to become Ubuntu zealots. Not linux
zealots or GNU zealots, or even those interested in Free Software. just
zealots of the Ubuntu distribution. And if you say something against it,
they'll downvote and flame away in response.

I moved to Arch and Gentoo, personally.

I wish you luck with your microsoft vestment. I'd advise you to diversify,
however; Skills only relevant in a (rapidly decreasing) fraction of the
computer market will only provide limited rewards in the future.

------
PhasmaFelis
And this is why building a great product with the intention of selling it to
the highest bidder is a fundamental betrayal of your customers.

~~~
davidjgraph
>And this is why building a great product with the intention of selling it to
the highest bidder is a fundamental betrayal of your customers.

Maybe you might furnish us with a list of business models you do approve of?
How about:

\- Building a crap product and selling it to the highest bidder?

\- Building a great product and selling it to the lowest bidder?

Building a great product and selling it (when the offer is) made to the
highest bidder is the basis a of large number of business models. Are you
against selling companies at all?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
How about:

-Building a great product, retaining ownership, and maintaining it for your user base to the best of your ability.

-Building a great product and selling it to someone who you're confident is committing to maintaining the quality of your product, even if they're not the highest bidder.

-Building a great product and selling it to the highest bidder, under pre-agreed terms that let you keep enough control to maintain quality.

People snark at me every time I suggest this. I really don't understand why.
Hacker News is brimming with stories of "I'm sad because
Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon/whatever bought a product/service I love and
immediately ruined it/shut it down." I don't think it's unreasonable to wish
that a product you use regularly and pay for (whether directly or through
advertising views) be maintained in good condition and not gutted. Maybe I'm
not cynical enough.

------
languagehacker
Skype's pretty much the worst thing ever anyway

~~~
AYBABTME
Really, I don't get why people care about it. It's closed source, shady,
loaded with spam bots and the company treats customers terribly.

~~~
ancarda
Network effect. All my friends and family use Skype and Facebook. It's
difficult to avoid using them when people have picked them as their sole
method of communication.

~~~
Groxx
Very much so. I use it at work because we use it for interviews, since most
people have it, and their voice and screen-share are more reliable (on nearly
every system) than alternatives (which people never have installed anyway).

We universally hate it. We haven't found anything better :(

~~~
code_duck
Google Voice/Talk/Hangouts does about the same stuff and has similar market
penetration, as far as people's familiarity with the company and likeliness
that they already have an account.

~~~
Groxx
Which is why we've been testing Hangouts for such things, yeah :) I have
hopes. It's pretty nice for some things. That said, it isn't there yet.

It has the ability to share windows (awesome!), but there's a persistent
watermark that's annoying and covers stuff up. Quality is often worse than
Skype, which means waiting a few seconds while it clears up the text.

It has crashed and/or disconnected more often (never thought I'd say that,
it's kind of hard to beat Skype here, but it has). Acceptably stable still,
but it's still an annoyance.

For communication purposes, it doesn't have _real_ persistent chatrooms, so we
lose history if someone doesn't check in for a day or so. Same with searching
the history.

\--

All of which means we still have to resort to Skype for _some_ things, at
which point the annoyance of having multiple simultaneous communication
systems outweighs our annoyance with Skype.

------
telecuda
This is really screwing us up and will force us to cancel paid subscriptions
prematurely. There was no outreach to the developer community to even find out
what interesting and/or thriving applications are relying on the API - just an
expiration date. I understand a new architecture for mobile is most important
right now, but it's at the expense of pissing off a loyal group of Skype
developers who could help further drive the platform's success.

------
tatata
who cares, webrtc is here!

~~~
fluxon
Deployment in usable apps timeline? I'm in.

~~~
ricardobeat
[http://talky.io](http://talky.io), [http://vmux.co](http://vmux.co),
[http://vline.com](http://vline.com)

~~~
changdizzle
Don't forget [http://tokbox.com](http://tokbox.com) !

------
WhiteDawn
Anyone know if you can still use an older client to use the api? I guess if
you can it's just a waiting game till the client becomes unsupported.

~~~
fluxon
I just got a forced update with no way to cancel. But I haven't gone to
OldApps to see how far back to go so that A) forced updates don't happen and
B) the API and apps still work reliably. Don't know which version at which
those two criteria are satisfied.

~~~
lucb1e
> I just got a forced update

Heh, Linux baby ;)

------
namuol
Hello, Google Hangouts!

~~~
lucb1e
Did anyone mention closed source? They just retired their XMPP interface... If
there is any way to go, it's not something that is almost equally closed
source.

Also Google+ and anything related has about the same reputation as Nokia in
the Netherlands. I don't know how it is in the US, but here I'm quite sure I
can't even find a single friend willing to use that service.

~~~
code_duck
Nokia has a poor reputation in the netherlands? I don't think most people in
the US realize that.

~~~
lucb1e
Well not poor so much as 'old'. Carrying Nokias by people under 30 is almost
frowned upon and buying them is like buying a computer that has Windows XP on
it.

