SKYPE

NAME Skype was originally “Sky peer-to-peer”, which was shortened to “Skyper”. The final “r” was dropped when the Skype.com address became available.

HISTORY Skype was founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennström from Sweden and Janus Friis from Denmark, using software created by Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu and Jaan Tallinn from Estonia.

OWNERSHIP ebay bought Skype for a reported $2.5 billion (€2.1 billion) in 2005. Microsoft acquired the company for $8.5 billion in 2011.

BUSINESS MODEL Skype to Skype is free. Teams is available to Office 365 account holders on its Business Essentials, Business Premium, Enterprise E1, E3 or E5 licence plans.

FUTURE Microsoft says it is building a new Skype infrastructure that will serve as the enterprisegrade service for voice, video and meetings in its Teams product. It has bundled Teams with Office 365 as an optional and free addition, so millions of Office 365 customers will eventually move over to Teams.