A brand and innovation strategist who worked with Skype during its meteoric rise says Skype succeeded because it was light, human and behaviour-changing – everything Teams is not.
Nicholas Roope, brand and innovation strategist at global expert network Label Sessions, has called Teams “Skype with heavy chains around its neck” and says Microsoft’s handling shows how bloated enterprise priorities can stifle product purpose.
Roope says Skype’s charm lay in its simplicity, humanity, and focus on behaviour change – traits that were eroded as Microsoft integrated it into its business suite and prioritised Teams.
Microsoft confirmed Skype will shut down on May 5, marking the end of a two-decade journey for one of the UK’s first tech unicorns. While Skype once led the VoIP revolution, its popularity waned in favour of Zoom, FaceTime, and Microsoft’s own Teams platform – a shift Roope sees as symbolic of how ‘corporate machinery’ can crush innovation.
Roope said: “For Skype to cut through and establish a new model of communication, it had to be radically simple, attractive, easy to use, and totally self-contained. And for a while, it worked. Its growth was explosive and the platform became one of the UK’s first startup unicorns.
“But Microsoft sees the world differently. Teams is like Skype with heavy chains around its neck – so heavy the original purpose and function often feel impossible. Just opening Teams makes me feel like my processor is about to burst into flames, if it even lets me sign in at all.
“My agency, Poke, worked with Skype for three years between the eBay and Microsoft acquisitions. We had already spent years with Orange, another tech brand that consciously put a more human face on complex technology. Skype knew from day one that they were not just building a brand, they were building a behaviour. No one else had done it yet – there were no networks, no habits, and nothing to hijack.
“We had to sell the idea of a new kind of conversation, then sell Skype. Most of our work focused on seeding use cases, giving people glimpses of how Skype could genuinely slip into their lives. Looking back, post-Zoom and COVID, the fanciful scenarios we created feel everyday now.
“In the end, it was just bad timing. Skype had already faded by the time the pandemic hit, pushed aside by Teams, a product so bloated and unnecessarily convoluted it made even basic calls feel like a fight with your IT department. Skype was not front of mind. It was not even there.
“Even just three years earlier, Skype would have been better poised to answer that desperate, pandemic-driven need for easy, casual connection. The old Skype, with its light, friendly tone, was perfect for the strange new era of colleagues working from kitchens, garden rooms, and beds.
“Skype helped invent the blend of casual and professional that modern business runs on today. Teams, however, cranked the corporate machinery up to 11, loading the experience with lag, clunk, and pointless complexity. The happy lightness of Skype, the cheery ringtone, the effortless vibe, got crushed under the weight of enterprise ‘needs’.
“Poke had seen it before with Orange. Both Skype and Orange understood that if you want new tech to stick, you have to explain it on simple, human terms. Skype was a dream client, playful, human, and ambitious as hell. They knew the only way to establish both a behaviour and a brand was to move fast, go crazy, and cut through with a wild and wonderful human voice.”
For more information on Label Sessions, visit labelsessions.com/
